Congrats to two OPIRG McMaster working groups!

Peggy McKay Awards recipients for 09: Two McMaster based working groups take the prizes: PEAS (Promoting Eating Alternatively and Sustainably) and Students for Renegade Society for their FreeSkool

Background
This award was established by Paul McKay (journalist, environmental activist, and former OPIRG-Peterborough staff member) in 1988, in memory of his mother, Peggy, who died of cancer in 1987. By encouraging environmental action, the awards will hopefully lead to a decrease in the cause of her death.

The Awards
Two prizes of $250 each will be awarded in April of each year. Once awarded, the money may be spent by the recipients in any way they choose.

criteria:
a) Novelty – Is the project something that isn’t necessarily tried and true – something a little different within the context of PIRG projects?
b) Effectiveness – Did the project meet its goals? If not, why not? Failures, so-called, can also be usefully evaluated.
c) Timeliness – Does the project contribute to an understanding of current environmental issues? Does it bring to light some new environmental issues for us to worry about?
d) Creativity – Does the project utilize new and imaginative methodology to reach project goals?
e) Networking – Does the project attempt to utilize and integrate existing community and/or campus resources relevant to it? In this context, resources are broadly defined and include people, organizations, libraries and so on.

So some deserving efforts are rewarded, thanks to the working groups and the Peggy McKay committee for their work on the difficult choices to select only two out of the submissions.