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This year we have created 36 billion more dollars in Federal Pell Grants, produced research reports and consumer guides, and worked to ban bottled water from Evergreen’s campus.
But we want to do more! We want to have a strong voice in Olympia and in DC so that we can, increase funding of higher education, stop global warming, and protect consumers!
WashPIRG Gets Results
Making Higher Education More Affordable — just last month, we helped create 36 billions more dollars in federal Pell Grants for college students. 1850 students at Evergreen rely on Pell Grants – that’s 41% of Greeners! Close to the vote deadline, WashPIRG Student Board Chair and Evergreen Senior Carl Davis lead an all out campaign to make sure students told Congressman Baird how important increasing student aid is! Davis and WashPIRG volunteers at Evergreen generated over 50 calls and emails into Baird’s office and held two in-district meetings. And we won! Congressman Baird and his colleagues passed HB 4872, and President Obama signed it into law on March 30th!
Banning Bottled Water — Bottled water creates a ton of waste, uses a ton of oil in its production, and isn’t actually any cleaner than tap water. WashPIRG teamed up with eight campus groups including the ERC, RAD Sustainability, and Recyclemania to raise awareness around the problems with bottled water. We held “Tap Water Challenge” tables challenging students to detect the difference between tap and bottled water and showed a screening of Tapped to a packed room of over 75 students. We built up so much public support around the campaign, that over 550 students signed a petition to put Ban the Bottle on the ballot at Evergreen this election.
Making Credit Card Companies More Responsible: In February, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act WashPIRG helped pass in 2009 went into effect. US PIRG Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski hosted a national press conference shining the public spotlight on the Act’s implications for young borrowers. The conference resulted in seven media hits in Washington, and 30 nationally.
Serving Immediate Needs of Hungry & Homeless: Lack of consistent access to food and housing is a growing problem in Washington State. 40% of Washington families make under $20,000 a year – an entire $2,000 under the national poverty level for a family of four. WashPIRG Students tackled the growing problem of hunger and homelessness in our communities by contributing needed item to support the work of local non-profits. This year, we’ve collected 294 clothing items, and logged 25 volunteer hours at Food Not Bombs in Olympia.
Environmental Protection – WashPIRG has done many things to protect Washington’s environment. From passing a Renewable Energy Standard to making sure Washington drives clean cars, WashPIRG fights hard to protect Washington’s environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is WashPIRG?
WashPIRG is a statewide, student-directed organization that works to solve problems facing our society. Our environment and public health are threatened, students are being ripped off, poverty is on the rise, and our decision makers aren’t listening to ordinary citizens. WashPIRG combines the idealism of students with the expertise of professional staff like advocates in Olympia & DC, researchers, and grassroots organizers.
What does WashPIRG do?
We get results. This spring we passed a student aid bill that set's aside $36 billion more in Pell Grants. In 2009, WashPIRG staff and students helped pass the Credit Card Accountability & Responsibility Act, that banned some of the most predatory practices credit card companies do against students. Right now, we’re working to ban bottled water from campus.
How is WashPIRG funded?
WashPIRG is funded through a $8 per quarter refundable fee students pay on their tuition bills. Students at Evergreen have been part of WashPIRG for nearly 30 years, pooling together their resources statewide with other WashPIRG chapters to hire staff, such as advocates, researchers and grassroots organizers, to work with them on issues that they care about. Students decide how to spend their resources on the issues that they care about, such as fighting homelessness, cutting the ridiculous cost of textbooks, and working for more clean energy.
What are the priorities for the next few years?
There are constantly attacks on laws that protect our environment or consumers; and unfortunately those bringing the attacks have a lot of money and influence. WashPIRG is working both on a state and federal level to protect good laws that are on the books so that we don’t roll back decades of progress that has been made.
But we're not just playing defense. We're working on new ways to make higher education affordable through new grants and lower interest rates. We're fighting to lower the cost of textbooks and create a market for Open Textbooks. We're working to make sure that Washington leads the way on addressing the problem of global warming, both through producing more renewable energy AND by having our college campuses lead the charge through good sustainability policies. And we're working to alleviate hunger and homelessness in our community.
And looking ahead to 2010, we’ll be mobilizing thousands of college students all over Washington to make sure that politicians start paying more attention to young people. Turnout has been on the rise amongst college students over the last couple of elections and we aim to keep it that way so that our nation’s leaders know that young people are a force to be reckoned with.
How does WashPIRG spend the funding it receives?
We use it all to tackle Washington's biggest problems and win positive reform for the state. When you look at the things we've done – standing up for Washington renter’s so they know their rights, passing the nation's first ban on toxic waste dumping, setting standards for cleaner cars - it's pretty clear that this is money well spent. The staff we hire and the campaigns we run do take resources, and with the challenges facing Washington and the rest of the country over the next few years, you can be sure that our staff and students will use these resources to stand up to the special interests and win. Our clean water, our land use protections, consumer and student rights - they all rely on our ability to hire an expert team of experts and professionals to fight for students.
Besides, polluting industries spend millions of dollars every day just on campaign contributions to elected officials (that doesn't include their lobbyists, their propaganda, their campaign ads, etc.), a $8 per student per term fee is small change in comparison to what we're up against. That small change makes a big difference - they might spend tens of millions of dollars trying to avoid pollution regulations, but with the help of students here at Evergreen, and all across WA, we are able to protect our environment and public health. Student support gives us the opportunity to make a difference at the local, state and even national level.
Where is the money spent?
Off and on campus, but mostly it goes to wherever WashPIRG's resources will make a difference on the issues that students care about. The whole point of establishing WashPIRG is to be able to have the resources to hire a staff of professionals - attorneys, researchers, organizers, and advocates - to work with students to fight against the special interests wherever they are trying to pollute the environment, rip-off consumers, or corrupt the democratic process.
Why does WashPIRG hire staff?
The problems that WashPIRG undertakes are large, statewide, often national in scope, and in the case of global warming, international. Staff are an important part of having an effective statewide organization. They bring expertise to student's ideas and continuity to long term student campaigns.
Do students in each chapter decide what issues to work on?
Students decide on the campaigns that they want to work on both locally and at the statewide level. All students can bring campaign ideas to the statewide board, where students from different chapters get together, to work on across the state. The problems that we face aren’t just local – students across the country are fighting poverty, environmental destruction, and for affordable education across the state and the country.
Why does WashPIRG work statewide?
The problems that Washington faces do not only occur on campus. In order to clean up our waterways, protect our national forests or lower textbook prices our staff need to go to the decision makers all across the state and in Washington D.C. With statewide grassroots support as well as our staff tackling problems from Seattle to Olympia, we are able to take on the special interests that create these problems and actually win for students and the public interests.
