With plans to revitalize the college’s environmental stance, a new club has set its focus on organizing interested students in working toward creating a cleaner and safer eco-system.

Representing the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, organizers Sandy Saeteurn and Megan Zapanta arranged to meet with students regarding the creation of an Environmental Justice Club on Feb. 11.

APEN is an organization based around Asian communities, but is looking to expand its outreach. It seeks to bring to light, and combat environmental woes afflicting citizens who might otherwise be unrepresented.

As an environmental group, APEN focuses less on invasive species, or extinctions but more on reducing the amount of harmful pollutants. 

“We’re more focused on how the environment is affecting people,”  Saeteurn said.

The meeting drew modest attendance, half a dozen students, sufficient to fill the small room.

They met with students to see what the different interests were or if there were any arising questions in the group.

“What is one thing you dream of for your community? What are things we could be fighting for?” Zapanta asked.

Saeteurn said, “If a club was started — if they wanted to, for example, start a community garden, we would try to find resources from the city or state (to make that happen) — or possibly provide training for work (installing) solar power. (We would) provide updates on what’s going on city, or statewide.”

The APEN representatives said they had asked about recycling, but were told that providing recycling would have been “too much of a hassle,” Saeteurn said. “If we had a club, this is the sort of thing we could work on.”

For those interested in APEN, representatives can be found on the first floor of the Applied Arts Building on Mondays from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in front of the Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) office.