Chico—sustainability feels like this
The internships I did while on campus set everything up for me to be where I am right now
“I don’t want to know what sustainability looks like; I want to know what it feels like.”
Max Kee remembers geography professor Mark Stemen’s aphorism well—especially because, Max says, it describes Chico. “There’s an energy here that I haven’t really found anywhere else in the world.”
For Max, sustainability feels like collecting compost from local restaurants by bike. And nurturing 80 families through a weekly share of vegetables and fruits. Pedal-powering a music festival. Getting muddy in preschool gardens.
All done through GRUB (Growing Resourcefully, Uniting Bellies), a local nonprofit founded by Max and fellow alums Francine Stuelpnagel, Lee Callendar, and Dresden Holden. GRUB is dedicated to lowering our ecological footprint through organic food production and education.
“The internships I did while on campus set everything up for me to be where I am right now.” says Max. “I made the connections, developed the skills.”
Max was involved with Diversion Excursion, CAVE (Community Action Volunteers in Education), and RARE (Recycling and Rubbish Exhibit). He received the 2007 Jack Rawlins Environmental Prize for his leadership in The Cause, a cohousing model of a low-impact lifestyle he developed with several fellow students.“It was through these internships and projects that I started to realize that campus wasn’t a bubble, that it very much had fingers reaching into all aspects of the local community,” says Max. “I’ve since made that community outreach a way of life.”
A lot of students have discovered what sustainability feels like at Chico State. Learn more information about Chico’s sustainability programs.
Max Kee sets out vegetables for the weekly produce pickup for GRUB, the Chico nonprofit he co-founded.