Senior is named Greencastle "Green Citizen of the Year

At the city's first ever Sustainable Greencastle Celebration, senior Tim Martin was honored as Greencastle's "Green Citizen of the Year." The award was presented to Martin by Greencastle Mayor Sue Murray at City Hall Thursday night.

The selections were made by the Greencastle Commission on Sustainability. The commission also recognized a green organization of the year, green business of the year and green youth citizen of the year.

The commission was created in June 2009 when the Greencastle city council voted to create the group. Murray said the commission was established "to move the community further ahead on 'green' issues."

The mayor, city council and the commission itself appoint three members each for the nine member commission.

Throughout his college career, Martin has been actively involved with environmental issues both on- and off-campus. As a Bonner Scholar, Martin regularly volunteered at City Hall and on campus, working on a variety of different sustainability issues.

His most recent accomplishment was spearheading a community garden, which opened by the intersection of Franklin and Spring streets.

"For a long time, my hope was to bring a community garden to campus," said Martin. "But I also took on other projects such as bringing more local and organic foods to DePauw's dining services."

Martin took an active role in the development phase of the project which began in January 2009. He said that since the project was launched approximately a year and a half ago, a core group of students, faculty, staff and members of the community have met regularly to build the community garden.

"I'd say we had a good, solid group of people come consistently to our meetings," Martin said.

He said that it was exciting to see the plan coming to life after all of the hard work.

The garden currently features 15 raised flower beds which can be rented for $10 each.

Aside from the sustainable benefits, Martin said that another rewarding aspect of the project is the opportunity to improve relations between the university and the rest of the Greencastle community.

"The real way to improve 'town-gown' relations in the community is to focus on positive events," he said.

"This project had a good balance of all members of the community, and this project turned out to be a very tangible and sensory experience to what sustainability is all about."

Murray said that Martin could not have been more deserving of the award.

"It was an obvious observation of all the hard work he put in to bringing the garden to the community," Murray said. "It is important to have that kind of dedication from DePauw students."

Junior Kate Wright has been actively involved with the community garden ever since the idea's inception. She said that the idea was originally presented to the DePauw Environmental Club, of which Wright was a member.

"It seemed like a good way to improve 'town-gown' relations," she said. "It also seemed like a nice way to escape from the craziness that DePauw can be sometimes."

Overall, Wright said that Martin was well deserving of the award.

"It's fantastic," she said. "I'm so excited that he has been awarded for the hard work that he has put in.