Program promotes fountain use

By Becca Sandager
Cardinal Staff

Students may have noticed the recently decorated drinking fountains in Toner Student Center and Hoffman, LaSalle and Saint Mary’s Halls. These decorated drinking fountains are part of the “Our Drinking Fountains, Our Water” project.

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“Our Drinking Fountains, Our Water” is a $20,000 grant program funded by the state of Minnesota through the Minnesota Campus Compact. The project is a yearlong collaboration among Saint Mary’s University, Winona Sate University, Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical, Southeast Minnesota Water Resources Board and the City of Winona, along with the Minneapolis Heart of the Beast Puppet-Mask Theater (HOBT).

The goal of “Our Drinking Fountains, Our Water” is to work with students and community members to learn more about and celebrate the Winona-area water quality and stewardship through collaborative art making. The theme of water will be incorporated into classes and presentations throughout the rest of the year.

“We’re trying to raise awareness about water,” said Dr. Joseph Tadie, SMU assistant professor of philosophy and residency coordinator for HOBT. His junior Lasallian Honors class is participating in the project. “It is an issue that is going to be an emerging serious problem for the world. We are so unthinking about it. Water is a great gift.”

Students and the community were also invited to participate in the Adopt-a-Drinking Fountain project, where they will create and implement an artistic design around a drinking fountain. The project was designed to get the community involved in raising awareness about the benefits of the clean, drinkable water in our fountains.

“We really live with an incredible privilege,” said Tadie. “There is no need to buy plastic water bottles. I can’t see how we’ve come to that when all we have to do right now is turn on the tap and (water) is there.”

A map of the decorated fountains (along with designer credit) will appear on the project’s website, http://water.southeastmn.edu.

The fountains will be decorated until March 18 and will remain in place until Earth Day celebrations on April 27.