Green House

The Green House (Low Impact Living Theme Cottage) seeks to create a comfortable living space for ecologically-minded and environmentally-conscious individuals on campus. We strive to be a leader in environmental activism at St. Lawrence.

We work together to create stronger and more sustainable communities in the campus and North Country community. We strive to live as low-impact as possible on campus and we work to raise awareness about the ways to live more simply outside of the dorm environment. We incorporate this awareness into our everyday lives, and lead by example so that other students may understand how to be environmentally active and conscientious, both on and off campus.

As a house we have focused on food as a tangible way to connect with local community, contribute to a sustainable food system and raise awareness about issues surrounding food. We cook dinner five nights a week using produce from two local farms and organic bulk food from the Potsdam Food Co-op and a regional distributer, Regional Access. One way we have reached out into the community is through our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share with Birdsfoot Farm. Our house works nearly 200 hours at Birdsfoot to reduce the cost of our CSA and contribute to the cultivation of our food.

Each member of the house is also encouraged to organize creative programs throughout the semester that foster promote sustainability and environmental awareness. Programs are open to the entire campus community and in the past have included:

Theme dinners with local foods
Documentary nights
Trips to the Canton Farmer’s Market
Fermentation workshops
Apple picking and cider pressing
Knitting and stitching
Canning and food preservation
Natural history walks
Poetry sharing
Bike repair workshops
Weahterizaiton projects
Composting tutorials

The Cottage’s theme is “To gather caring, motivated people with similar interests to build a strong presence of environmental action and to serve as a model of low impact living.”