A fun thought dawned on me today while I was chatting with the team at our weekly meeting. It has been over 10 since we introduced the Farm Basket at uOttawa... 10 years! Honestly most appliances don't even last that long. I though this might be a good chance to talk about the origins of the program and how we might grow this program (pun intended) for the next decade. Ten years ago, an international student (Coraline) came to intern at our office with the express interest of starting a Community Supported Agricultural program, more commonly known as a CSA. Coraline was quickly able to find a farm that fit all our criteria. We wanted...  A farm that could offer certified organic vegetables That was local and could deliver to the campus Starting a food movement on campus Our three criteria were important to us because we wanted to create a sustainable food system on campus, with one of the focal points being to source organic food. Sure, " the 100 mile diet " was a big cra...

We want to start the year off by offering you a fresh twist on the big sustainability stories from uOttawa from 2025. Instead of condensing the stories into a tight list and trendy infographic, we want to "unwrap" these stories to tell you about the impact to the uOttawa campus. It's the start of a new semester and I am sure that last thing you want to do is scroll through yet another "wrapped" list for last year. Sure, these wrapped lists have become really popular over the years with Spotify leading the way; offering you a look back at your personal music consumption over the previous 12 months. This was quickly adopted by every company in the world, offering not so much a personal experience of the year's events, but more of an self ingratiating celebration of their own accomplishments. Essentially, they took the "year in review" concept, relabeled it with the trendier "wrapped" title, and hoped no one would notice.  Well, we noticed a...

That's right friends, the Free Store is getting a new space, a new look, and a couple of new features... but more about that in a minute. First, a little background. The Free Store has been bringing a unique retail experience to University of Ottawa students for two decades! What is that experience you ask? Well everything is free for starters. But, really the biggest feature is that everything in the store was considered garbage at one point. And so, the store is quite literally keeping things out of landfill while saving the customers money. The first time anything resembling a Free Store happened was back in 2007, when a bunch of items were left in some residence rooms and then given back to new students arriving on campus in September. That first event was very modest... imagine a picnic blanket on the grass with a sign that said "FREE" in front of a few donated items. Fast-forward a couple of years and the Free Store has moved into its own retail space and grown imm...