Community Advocacy Awards   All Photo Credits: Jim Terrinoni

1. Joanne M. Mahoney - Onondaga County Executive	Category – Government Leadership For recognizing there is a more sustainable way to control storm and sanitary runoff in the Armory Square area, and for advocating sustainability practices throughout County Government
2. Greg Wright - Habitat for Humanity Restore	Category – Deconstruction For going above and beyond to educate and facilitate Deconstruction Methods to the Community
3. Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency - Kristen Lawton	Category – Water/Waste Management For establishing community awareness of recycling through your monthly newsletter, and for continuing to organize an annual earth day cleanup.
4. F.O.C.U.S. - Chuckie Holstein	Category – Community Involvement/Awareness For bringing awareness of Sustainable Issues to the Community through your monthly presentations and facilitating dialogue within the Community.
5. Sue Miller - On. Co. Dept of Water Environment Protection	Category – Waste Water Management For managing over 30 projects for the reclamation of Onondaga Lake, and being responsible for all public information and education activities on Onondaga Lake

Membership Service Awards

1. Outstanding Service

	Person - Mark Naef For leading the organization and establishing working relationships with the community and government groups.
	Person - Diane Brandli For exceptional service in maintaining the weekly newsletter and servicing our membership.

2.  Member of the year

Person - Greg Michel For taking the lead in developing and running our Sustainability Academy programs.

The topic for this year’s event is, “The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment”.   Three key leaders in sustainability delivered presentations outlining their schools sustainability achievements. Each of their college campuses have signed the commitment will be presenting their progress.  They include:

from Syracuse University, Eric F. Spina, Vice Chancellor and Provost,

from SUNY ESF,  Mike Kelleher, Director of Renewable Energy Systems, and

from Onondaga Community College, David Wall, Director of Corporate and Public Partnerships, Workforce Development.

The Presidents Climate Commitment describes this pledge as follows:

The American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment is a high-visibility effort to address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions, and to accelerate the research and educational efforts of higher education to equip society to re-stabilize the earth’s climate.

Parents, grandparents children, and other interested community members flocked to the GreeningUSA "Get Your Green On" Spring Festival held at Blodgett School on the Near West Side of Syracuse. Over 350 participants traveled around the Blodgett gymnasium participating in environmentally themed stations, enjoying festive games and crafts, and enjoying dance performances by local dance groups. Participants pedaled to power light bulbs, planted vegetable seeds and learned about a planet friendly diet, wrote letters to the president about green schools, painted a rain barrel, learned about green jobs, played a "dunk your junk" recycling game, played games introducing the concept of sustainability, took a penny poll, talked about bicycling and using a car share program, took a quiz about all that they learned and more.

The Festival is presented in collaboration with OCRRA, Naef Recycling, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Syracuse City School District and the Amos Project. Funding is provided by the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute through a grant from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.