SP0293: Bicentennial Sustainability Week - Community Plant Giveaway

This project is built upon last year’s Celebrate Together plant giveaway, as part of the larger Bicentennial Celebrations, of which Sustainability is the central theme. Building on the success of last year’s event where 6,000 plants (4,000 Tagetes and 2,000 Tradescantias) were grown at Macdonald Campus farm and distributed throughout McGill campuses (downtown, Macdonald, Campus Outaouais, Gault) and downtown Montreal over the course of three days.

This year's event, entitled 'The Community Plant Giveaway', will be a flagship event of the Bicentennial's Sustainable Futures Festival - a week of programming where students, staff, faculty, alumni, local and global community partners will be invited to come together to express what sustainable futures and communities mean to them, as we enter our third century. Other major events include a keynote address by a prominent leader in sustainability and climate action, the MSSI symposium, MOOS' Catalyst Awards, and a career fair for sustainability-oriented organizations and companies to meet with, and recruit McGill students from across the University. The objective of the Festival is to celebrate the future of sustainability at McGill and beyond, and is an opportune moment to remind community-members of the importance of promoting sustainability resources in the form of a giveaway.

Partners at Macdonald campus farm will play a large part in the entire process once again. The team at the Horticulture centre will be responsible for seed sourcing, planting (starting in Spring 2022) and cultivating for the giveaway. The Bicentennial Office will procure additional materials, organize communications and logistics and execute the giveaway. Every step of the process will prioritize sustainable practices: working with internal and local companies, selecting the sustainable products and minimizing carbon footprint. Funding from SPF will contribute to procuring the desired number of plant and tree seeds (5,000) to give away to the community.

The distribution will include one or two varieties of tree plants and/or garden plants, and one or two varieties of indoor plants. The varieties chosen will depend on seed availability; annual plants will be prioritized over seasonal, to ensure that the plants/trees will stay for years to come. Plant tags, feating SPF's logo, will be included with instructions for plant-care, as was done with Celebrate Together.