Summer School at GreenBy3
GreenBy3 is lucky to operate in an area with local colleges and universities. Students are a valuable resource for small businesses such as ours that are trying to be innovative and trying to work “smart” as well as hard.
College of Charleston’s Honor’s College Sophomore Parks Barroso started an internship with us back in the spring and Senior Historic Preservation and Community Planning major Dannielle Hobbs came to us for the summer after working in the City of Charleston’s Department of Planning, Preservation and Sustainability.
College of Charleston students Parks Barroso and Dannielle Hobbs were tremendous assets to GreenBy3 this summer.
It was a busy summer for GreenBy3 and we had plenty of projects for Parks and Dannielle to be involved in and help with.
Parks did inventory of our warehoused reclaimed building materials, attended project meetings on Crisis Ministries’ new shelter for homeless men with Jorge, and made a trip to Hendersonville to see Biz611 and attend the Green Home Tour sponsored by Environmental Conservation Organization of Western NC . He also spent several hot days loading and unloading trucks as GreenBy3 moved from the old Navy Base into new office/workshop/storage space on upper King St.
Dannielle kept a camera with her all the time and faithfully recorded progress at the Crisis Ministries building site. She blogged about the installation of earthquake drains which was a major, early phase of the project that took place this summer between rain storms. She also brought back to active status a community program to solicit used bikes for Crisis Ministries to make available to their guests in need of transportation to work or school. Dannielle made contacts with local bike shops, produced a flyer for Crisis Ministries to distribute, and created an information sheet with talking points for volunteers who will follow her to help with this program.
When Jorge participated in a panel discussion about “Localizing Your Supply Chain” at Lowcountry Local First’s GOOD Business Summit , Dannielle learned that Jorge’s emphasis on people and the planet as well as profit is known as the Triple Bottom Line business model and its proponents are growing locally and nationally.
Both Parks and Dannielle said they learned a lot this summer about how teamwork and communication work in a small company. The college environment prepared them well to actively participate, give and share ideas. They were both very adept with an array of methods, programs and apps we use at GreenBy3 to organize and share information.
Parks and Dannielle are back to busy class schedules now, but they know they are welcome to drop by GreenBy3 anytime. In fact, Parks’ internship is continuing as he develops our in-house recycling program at our new workspace. Dannielle is looking ahead to possibly working in Japan after graduation. We’ll be cheering them both on to whatever comes next.
GreenBy3 values the opportunity to work with students at all levels. It is important to give the next generation of business owners and leaders practical experience in doing business sustainably.
Tagged: Business Info, Community
