How we formed

The Dirtbag Brigade was in essence the brain child of Dr. Brian Thomas, a professor of sociology at Saginaw valley state university. The idea derived from a trip that Dr. Thomas had taken to China. He was able to observe massive underground green houses. These green houses generally went about 6 to 8 feet into the ground and only built about 3 to 4 feet above ground. They work by keeping the heat from the ground in and using the ground itself as insulation. The only thing that really comes over the top of the green house is a sheet of plastic.

Caitlin Cooper who is Social work major, sociology minor was talking to Dr. Thomas one day about a hydroponics system that is located in one of the residence halls of our university. While they were talking Dr. Thomas was able to discuss the underground Green house idea with Caitlin. Caitlin told Alyssa Tarrant about the idea and they started writing a grant.

I was hired as worker/designer/ volunteer coordinator / journalist for the green house as a summer job to gain more professional experience in project organization. So far I am really enjoying what I am doing. People get so caught up in the technology of today that sometimes they just don’t realize that the simplest things can provide the most help to people.

On Tuesday Alyssa, Dr. Thomas and I got together with the Ed Meisel who is the director of the current green houses at Saginaw Valley State University. He gave us a tour of his facilities as well as showed us where the tools were so we could get to work. We were also able to pick a plot for our underground green house. We chose our spot because we were told that most other spots tended to have water trouble. We tried to pick a spot that was not in the way of other projects but had easy access to things such as electricity and a water reserve.

The next day Alyssa and I came back to get some work done. Alyssa worked on the global buckets and I started filling dirt bags for one of the walls of the green house. I want to staple the bags shut with a staple gun but I do not have access to one at this point. I simply just built a wall by butting the open ends of the bags together. You are also supposed to place barbed wire in-between rows in order to keep the bags from moving. Even without the barbed wire I was able to stand on top of the wall. I ended up filling 20 bags to make a wall about three feet high in about two hours. I can’t wait to see how sturdy the wall is once we seal the bags and use the barbed wire!