Christina Weiler ‘21 is studying Environmental Economics and is involved with the Thought Into Action entrepreneurship program at Colgate.
What does community service mean to you?
Community service is giving of yourself for something greater than yourself. It is taking stock of your strengths and applying them to a project that improves the lives of others and/or our natural environment. In my experience, service can remove me from what I thought was my “comfort zone,” and orient me into a feeling pretty human and familiar. By this I mean that doing for others is a right and natural thing.
How did you find this opportunity?
I applied to Colgate’s entrepreneurship program the summer before my first semester. When I attended my first Thought Into Action (TIA) lecture, I was suddenly free to tackle any problem I wanted, surrounded and guided by alumni mentors (AKA trained problem-solvers). The problem I chose was one I had thought about since elementary school: recycling. Everywhere I go, I see poor recycling performance, yet I also notice that people care tremendously for the environment and their community. An opportunity presented itself to address improper recycling habits and help people directly support the social causes they care about.
So, I started The UCan Project, a nonprofit organization that motivates increased and cleaner recycling by empowering people to donate to local causes with every item recycled. UCan partners with businesses looking to enhance their social and environmental responsibility, who pledge to match each pound of recycled material with a donation of a meal to the local community.
What has been one of your most meaningful experiences in the nonprofit sector?
I have been lucky to have incredible experiences starting UCan. I have received guidance from brilliant and experienced alumni mentors through the Thought Into Action entrepreneurship program. They have helped connect me to amazing people, trained me to pitch my business in 60 seconds, and helped me file for nonprofit status with my organization.
Being in college is a great time to start a project because of the incredible bounty of resources at our disposal. There are brilliant faculty members willing to advise, fellow students eager to support, and a alumni keen to offer mentorship. I even had the opportunity to fundraise at the bicentennial football game and alumni council meeting this fall, where generous alumni and parents donated nearly a thousand dollars within a few hours. I’ve met with President Casey to talk about what sustainability will look like on Colgate’s campus and beyond five, ten, and fifty years into the future. The support and resources here are truly incredible. At the end of UCan’s first semester running, in the spring of 2018, it was truly meaningful to donate the funds we raised to the Rescue Mission of Utica, a housing, dining, and educational center for homeless individuals and families.
What was your experience like? What did you gain from this experience?
Being able to congregate students based on a mission of sustainability and local community betterment through UCan has been very impactful. UCan has a team of several passionate, hardworking, and awesome students who work hard to integrate UCan into the campus culture (through planning advertising campaigns, cleaning up recycling bins, designing educational materials, and gauging feedback from the larger student body). Because of the experience working with these students, I now have a better understanding of which methods of recycling education motivate behavior change best.
How did this experience influence your plans for the future?
A big part of running UCan involves engaging with businesses and pitching a partnership with UCan as a pathway to achieving corporate social and environmental responsibility. This experience of nudging businesses into a more green direction has taught me that there is an environmentalist within all of us. People are not actively trying to degrade our environment. Instead, lack of action in part is a result of a lack of accountability. In the future, I want to innovate creative ways to hold individuals and business owners environmentally accountable. In many cases, people need a push — someone greeting them and offering a plan that fits within a reasonable budget, or even saves money. Connecting the right people to the right information at the right time makes the possibilities boundless. I am very interested in sustainable business and public policy and would love to enter one of these fields after college.
Are you involved in a COVE group?
I don’t regularly attend the groups, but I have attended a few meetings for CHOP, and intend to be more active this semester!