Herbicide Free Campus
2021 REX FOUNDATION GRANTEE
Herbicide-Free Campus (HFC) envisions a toxin-free world created by student action. We train young environmental leaders to become advocates for organic landcare on their campuses and beyond, challenging chemical-intensive norms and re-imagining land use in educational spaces. We inspire young people to uproot traditional practices – typically sprawling green lawns managed with synthetic herbicides and fertilizers – and advocate for the creation of native, biodiverse, food-producing, pollinator-friendly spaces tended with hands instead of chemicals. We are on a mission to re-wild educational institutions, protect our frontline workers, and empower students to become environmental changemakers. Through community education, direct action, and collaborative student-groundskeeper weeding workdays, students advocate for institutional change and demand a new standard in the realms of human and environmental health. Our work is intersectional and multifaceted, tying the issue of rampant herbicide-use to not only the health of our students and frontline workers, but also to the health of our food system, waterways, soil, pollinators, and our climate.