Several members of the NCI at Frederick Green Team holding their HHS Green Champion Award honorable mention certificates. Back row, from left, Dolores Winterstein, Melissa Porter, Denise Shelley, and Cheryl Bowman. Front row, from left, Linda Brandenburg and Eckart Bindewald. Not pictured: Thomas Schneider, Howard Young, and former members Chelsey Jahn and Melissa Lambert.
Courtesy of the NCI at Frederick Green Team
The NCI at Frederick Green Team received a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Green Champion Award honorable mention in June for the team’s plant swap initiative, begun in October 2012.
“The Green Team has been doing a great job this past year, and it is wonderful that their efforts have been recognized by the HHS through the Green Champion Awards,” said Craig Reynolds, Ph.D., director of the NCI Office of Scientific Operations (OSO).
The HHS Green Champion Awards were established in response to President Obama’s Executive Order 13514, issued in October 2009, “challenging federal agencies to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption, and pollution,” according to the 2013 HHS Green Champion Awards Ceremony program (http://www.nems.nih.gov/greening/Pages/GreenChampionsAwardsCeremony2013…). These awards recognize HHS employees for fiscal year 2012 sustainability efforts.
Plant Swap Held at Spring Research Festival
The Green Team held its second plant swap during the Spring Research Festival on May 8 and 9. It did not take long for word to spread about the plant swap. Each day, employees brought in excess plants from their gardens.
“We had a wide variety of plants available, and soon after the plants were dropped off, they were snatched up by others looking to expand their gardens at home,” said Melissa Porter, administrative manager, NCI Office of Scientific Operations, and chair of the Green Team. “This is the purpose of the plant swap: instead of having perfectly good plants get tossed in the trash, they are recycled and benefit others.”
The team is planning another plant swap in the fall.
