2022 Grant Awards

2022 Food Relatives Conference

The term “Food Relatives” signals to the alternative and Indigenous food systems that view food as more than a commodity. As a generative category and notion, Food Relatives gives insight into how various actors can decolonize and indigenize their respective Food Systems by attuning to the more-than-human as part of economic, social, and political lives. 

By bridging academics, community leaders, consumers, and other vital actors within various national food systems, FIGC also sought to reinforce the goal of the Berkeley Food Institute (BFI): to understand and transform food systems in a cross-disciplinary manner in order to build a more resilient and equitable future within and beyond academic institutions.

TGIF Award: $11,868

BSFC: Putting the Campus in Campus Grocery

A 1,000 square foot former nail salon does not a grocery store make. And yet, students at the Student Food Collective (the Collective), the RSO-governed and operated grocery co-op have endeavored to try and make their space at 2440 Bancroft Way work anyway — and for a decade, they have. The Collective serves over ten thousand student patrons each year with affordable, healthy, sustainable and local foods from minority vendors and farmers — including over 150 weekly student member-volunteers each semester — out of a small space never intended for food service. By scaling up their space and moving onto campus, students who’ve been sustaining a tiny shop for over ten years will finally be able to make good on their dream of building a full-service, on-campus, student-run grocery store.

TGIF Award: $57,886

Community-engaged engineering: a partnership with the AB 617 community in Stockton

This project will sustain environmental justice work being done by Berkeley engineering students with the Stockton AB 617 community to improve local air quality and address climate change. Through a “systems thinking” approach, students are exposed to ideas about how engineers can include socio-economic and political factors in their decision making. Student interns supported by this project will continue work done by student teams to address air quality through energy, buildings, transportation, industry, food, and urban greening solutions. This grant provides funding for student interns to sustain and deepen engagement with the community over the next three years.

TGIF Award: $45,975

Climate Break: Radio Clips, Podcasts, and Video

Climate Break is a 90 second “bite-sized” audio clip featuring timely climate interviews with compelling scientists, innovators, organizers, and leaders offering climate solutions and other examples of progress on climate change. The clips are produced primarily by students in conjunction with the Center for Law, Energy, and Environment (CLEE) at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and are posted on the Climate Break website, social media, and podcast services, as well as released to radio stations, both in 90-second versions and in more extended forms.

 

TGIF Award: $24,916.80

Solar Decathlon 2023: Sustainability, Education, and Arts Development Center

The Sustainability, Education, and Arts Development (SEAD) Village is an ongoing, student-led design and build of a village for unhoused youth in Oakland, CA, consisting of 24 residential units and an artist-maker community center. The SEAD Center is this artist-maker community center and acts as a competition entry into the Solar Decathlon Build Challenge 2023, an international collegiate green building competition hosted by the US Department of Energy.

TGIF Award: $124,807

Algae Solar Panel Project

The Biofuels Technology Club (BTC) is a College of Chemistry club, whose committed mission is to achieve a zero-waste campus. By making biodiesel from waste cooking oil in the campus dining halls, the club has the goal of eventually powering campus fleets. Though CalDining continues to provide an excellent source of oil for feedstock, we have launched an experimental team to look into other potential sources if increased scale is needed. One key area of exploration is microalgae; as it produces lipid content, accumulates in biomass rapidly, and requires low-maintenance. After the algae is grown in the designed apparatus, it will be filtered, and oil will be extracted to use in the club’s research lab facility, and be tested in the Richmond Field Station.

TGIF Award: $6,456

Foodware Reusables at Haas

The project aims to fully replace single-use food packaging for catered events by introducing a reusables service driven by a sustainability platform that will allow to easily measure the environmental impact of students, events and Haas, as well as a mobile app for students to conveniently collect & return reusables and track their individual impact.

TGIF Award: $49,690

UC Berkeley Green Labs Program Research Community Trainings

The Green Labs Program hopes to provide the research community with access to the My Green Lab Accredited Professionals Modules online. After training is complete, the Green Labs program will hire a student intern to host discussions to review and summarize these findings in the form of a deliverable to share with other labs. The project aims to standardize the procedures for making sustainability recommendations across all labs.

TGIF Award: $6,550

UC Berkeley COP 27 Delegation

The COP 27 is an annual conference held to discuss the catastrophic effects of climate change and ensure all countries are adhering to their targets of keeping the rise in global temperature to 1.5C. COP 27 will be held in Egypt and aligns with the goal of keeping the climate conference in Africa, which is home to many people most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This COP is critical as the topic of discussion revolves around addressing the disproportionate impact on developing countries. Therefore, the principles of environmental justice are hopefully finally going to be weaved into the international discussion. SERC plans to send a delegation of undergraduate and graduate students to attend the COP 27.

TGIF Award: $19,640

Zero Waste Reusables Advancement Research Project

Zero Waste Reusables Advancement Research Project gives undergraduates at UC Berkeley opportunities to have real experience in the field and to gain a deeper knowledge of the importance of zero waste on campus and in the real world. They are doing this by using the funds TGIF provides to hire four students to conduct research about implementing reusables and creating a zero-waste campus. Each student will have a different concentration to focus their time on.

TGIF Award: $26,400