At a glance
The University of Washington School of Dentistry Climate Action and Sustainability Team (CAST) is hosting its annual Earth… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2025-2026
- Mini
- Awarded
- $177
- Funding partners
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- Services and Activities Fee (SAF)
The University of Washington School of Dentistry Climate Action and Sustainability Team (CAST) is hosting its annual Earth Week to promote sustainability among students and staff through hands-on and educational events. Activities include community exchange of reusable items, trash cleanup, repurposing clothing, sustainable cooking, and creative reuse contests. CAST Earth Week engages the UW community in sustainability practices, hands-on learning, and environmental stewardship while fostering awareness of waste reduction and creative reuse. Funds cover a room rental, the rental of sewing machines, and the purchase of secondhand fabric.
The University of Washington School of Dentistry Climate Action and Sustainability Team (CAST) is putting on another annual Earth Week. CAST promotes sustainability to students and staff at the dental school by putting on events, Lunch-and-Learns, and supporting healthcare-related sustainability research. We are hoping to receive supporting funding for a few essential components to make this week of fun events happen.
Monday: Swap meet (Room reservation fee)
A swap meet will be a great way for people to exchange stuff they no longer want and get things they do from people in their community!
Tuesday: Sustainable cooking (online, no funding requested)
We are hoping people submit their meals throughout the week and will give away a scrub cap to a randomly selected person who participates.
Wednesday: Litter pickup (6 trash grabbers)
This will be on Earth Day, it will be a nice trash walk to clean up the UW medical campus!
Thursday: Creative reuse contest (online, no funding requested)
We are hoping people submit their meals throughout the week and will give away a scrub cap to a randomly selected person who participates.
Friday: Scrub cap sewing workshop (MILL reservation, secondhand fabric, thread, and buttons)
Teaching people to sew a scrub cap opens accessibility doors to their own desire to mend and repair their own clothes. It also makes people understand how laborious clothes-making is! The MILL is free to UW students and a great place to sew if you don’t have a sewing machine.
Weekend: Adopt-a-buffer (no funding requested)
CAST has been out to the Snoqualmie Valley area to take out invasive blackberry and plant native scrubs and trees,.
Request amount and budget
Plans for financial longevity
The trash grabbers will be stored for our next trash walk. A workshop guide for the sewing event has already been made, as we have put that event on with supportive funding as well. This is not a long continuing project, moreso a week of accessible sustainable events targeted for health sciences student and faculty.
Earth Day 2026 is Wednesday April 22nd, so these events will be occuring during that week. For the sewing event, we will plan to reserve the sewing machines at the MILL as soon as we have secured a source of funding. CAST works together to cut fabric and iron. We will make flyers for the swap meet and post it all around so that it can be a campus-wide event.
Plans for long-term project management
We have officer elections and events that the club wants to happen may change year to year. But an Earth week has been put on by CAST for the last two years.
Problem statement
There is not a huge emphasis on sustainability in healthcare as much as there is efficiency or cost-costing. CAST does events of varying intensity in hopes of engaging all people with sustainability. We hope that Earth Week is a week of fun events that everyone would like to participate in.
Problem context
As a health sciences graduate student, the School of Dentistry feels pretty insular and does not feel engaged with main campus very often, so CAST has tried to introduce sustainable events to the students and faculty there. When we had our sewing event, only a few people had been up to main campus where the MILL is (located in McCarty Hall). The dental students seem to hardly hear about cool sustainable events or the events are not near them or outside their hours.
Measure the impacts
| Impact / goal | Metric(s) of success | UW stakeholders impacted |
|---|---|---|
| 30 people engaged | 30 people engaged | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff |
| >1 new person unfamiliar with CAST engaged | >1 new person unfamiliar with CAST engaged | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
| 2 lbs fabric diverted/repurposed | 2 lbs fabric diverted/repurposed | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff, Admin staff |
Communication tactics and tools
Social media flyers, flyers around the Health Sciences building to get people to come to the swap meet, dental school listservs for the sewing event.
Outreach communication plan
We will put up flyers around the Health Sciences Building advertising the clothing swap. For the sewing event, we have found that there is more than enough interest than spots available for attendees, so we will stick with just submitting it out to the dental school listservs.
Student involvement
N/A.