Corvallis Sustainability Coalition

Protecting Natural Areas and Supporting Sustainable Transportation: The Water Action Team led a culvert replacement project in the Bald Hill Natural Area, expanding the culvert's diameter from 10 inches to 8 feet to release the headwaters of the North Branch of Dunawi Creek. Since 2016, volunteers have planted and maintained over 8,000 native plants at the site in preparation for "daylighting" of the stream for the first time in over 100 years. The team is regenerating 13 active sites in Corvallis, including the Bald Hill Natural Area and Starker Arts Park, where the team continued to regenerate a functional wetland, planting many more wetland species, increasing wetland habitats, and improving the wetland soils. In addition, at Lamprey Creek in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, the team continued to develop the native riparian buffer to further protect the stream during the upcoming park development. The Transportation Action Team, which is working to make Corvallis more livable by promoting walking, biking and use of public transit, co-sponsored the 5th annual Open Streets with the City of Corvallis. The event featured a mile of walkable, bikeable streets for people to explore neighborhoods around Corvallis and fun activities for people of all ages such as live music, dance, games and fitness activities. In addition, team volunteers turned car trips into bike trips by providing portable bike racks at community events. They transported the racks (by bike!) to Concerts at SAGE, Open Streets, Septembeerfest, Octoberfest, Corvallis Fall Festival, and Funk in the Forest. At every event, the racks were packed with bikes. The team continued to promote active transportation by sponsoring their webinar series about safer multimodal street design. A highlight of the series was "Great Corvallis Streets: Road Diets", presented by Dan Burden, a nationally-recognized authority on making streets more bikeable and walkable. They also organized an electric vehicle Show & Tell event at the Green Living Expo, bringing together current and potential owners of electric cars, e-bikes, and other EVs.

Community Outreach, Engaging Volunteers, and Creating an Inclusive Community: As a network of almost 400 partner organizations (businesses, nonprofit organizations, faith communities, educational institutions, and local government units) and hundreds of individual volunteers, the Coalition provided grassroots leadership, inspiration, resources, and opportunities for collaboration in working on sustainability issues. The Coalition encouraged community involvement and interaction by inviting the entire community to its annual and quarterly meetings, where attendees had the opportunity to network and share information about sustainability issues, and numerous presenters among the partner organizations and 12 action teams presented their sustainability accomplishments. The monthly Sustainability Events Calendar also provided opportunities for community members to learn about our partners' activities. In March 2023 the Coalition hosted its annual Sustainability Fair and Town Hall event to continue highlighting the sustainability efforts of the community with the "Community Scrapbook" slide show, and to prompt discussions among the participants in small groups on local sustainability topics. The Sustainability Fair featured local food and musicians, and about 40 hands-on sustainability exhibits. The featured speakers at the Town Hall event were local climate action activists, and a highlight of the program was the launch of a new initiative to help the community become more energy secure. The Coalition also seeks to create an inclusive community. One way to accomplish that is through the Neighborhood Roots program, which completed its second year of increasing shade equity by planting native trees on private properties. Volunteers identified a prospective neighborhood, reached out to residents in the summer, and held a planting party in the fall. Also, the Coalition co-sponsored the 7th annual Champinefu Series, designed to inspire the Corvallis community to acknowledge, understand, and collaborate with the Kalapuya culture. The three-session series included an evening of winter storytelling, during which 440 attendees heard indigenous stories of place in both English and Kalapuyan languages. The Coalition's Steering Committee continues to implement an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Framework by including discussion of EDI resources as part of their monthly meetings. In addition to the $49,841 of cash expenditures for community outreach, engaging volunteers, and creating an inclusive community, a facility rental valued at $5,400 was donated for the Sustainability Fair and Town Hall event.

Fostering a Sustainable Local Food System and Encouraging Waste Prevention: The Food Action Team sustained It's On Us (IOU) Corvallis, feeding people in need of a meal at local restaurants. They continued to partner with a mobile payment app (Kuto) to provide electronic gift cards for use at participating restaurants, making it easier for customers to order meals and to save restaurants significantly on credit card fees. The program also teamed up with the Corvallis Farmers' Market to distribute $20,000 in ARPA funds, supporting local farmers by enabling recipients of Farmers' Market currency to purchase Farmers' Market items of their choice. In addition, the team partnered with Corvallis-Benton County Public Library to create a new Public Seed Library stocked with commercial seed packets. Over 1,500 new and partially used seed packets were donated and distributed. Seven free lectures and 6 pop-up Vegetable Garden Plant Clinics were sponsored in collaboration with Benton County OSU Extension and Master Gardeners. Also, the team distributed nearly 1,000 copies of the 2023 Corvallis Garden Resource Guide and organized an Edible Garden Tour that attracted hundreds of attendees. Their Neighborhood Planters Kiosks, located at 33 residential and public sites, displayed weekly posters to support gardening and neighborhood connections. And, in partnership with Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and Corvallis Community Center, the Food Action Team sponsored a second successful year of "Cooks and Books", pairing library cookbooks with the talents of local chefs and showcasing a variety of ethnic cuisines. The No Food Left Behind program of the Waste Prevention Action Team introduced a new interactive game, Food Waste Prevention Bingo, and distributed thousands of "Smart Strategies" in English and Spanish, teaching how and why to prevent wasted food at home. They also distributed 100 countertop composting pails to make sure inedible food scraps make it from kitchen-to-compost instead of from lunch-to-landfill. The Recycling Block Captains program distributed three separate handouts, educating their neighbors about contamination at the curb, creating less trash, and electronic waste. The team continued to offer both print and online versions of the popular ReUse Directory and concluded the Benton To Go pilot project at nine participating restaurants, enabling customers to use reusable takeout containers and restaurants to cut costs.

Acting on Climate Change by Making Buildings More Energy Efficient and Shifting to Renewable Energy: The Coalition's newest initiative is Shift Together, a 5-year campaign to support everyone in our community with the resources and funding to move toward increased energy efficiency and renewable energy. Generous federal and state incentives and rebates are key to the campaign. In collaboration with Seeds for the Sol and Energy Trust of Oregon, the Energy Action Team provided 101 home energy assessments, serving 89 low-to-middle income households and helping them access incentives that allow them to make energy efficiency upgrades at low to no cost. Since 2021, they also have facilitated more than 150 Home Retrofit Clinics. This free, two-hour consultation helps homeowners explore available incentives and improvements such as electric heat pump water heaters and heat pumps to heat and cool their homes. Also, in partnership with Oregon Clean Power Co-op and our solar host organizations, the team also raised $192,000 in community investments and donations to support Solarize Corvallis solar installations for local schools and organizations. Each Solarize Corvallis project helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while saving the host organizations significant costs on their monthly electric bills. So far, Solarize Corvallis has completed 12 large-scale projects. In 2023 three projects were completed (the installation of solar panels at Franklin K-8 School, Cheldelin Middle School, and Benton County Historical Society), and a grant was awarded to First Alternative Natural Foods Cooperative for the installation of solar panels.