The College of Staten Island has been honored with the 2025 Daylight Hour Spirit Award, a national recognition celebrating institutions that creatively promote sustainable practices and energy awareness. This marks another proud win for the College, which this year distinguished itself through a vibrant partnership between its Creative Exchange program and the Sustainability Office.
Daylight Hour, a global social media campaign organized annually by the Building Energy Exchange, encourages organizations to turn off lights in sunlit spaces from noon to 1:00pm as a symbolic act of environmental stewardship. This year, CSI embraced the spirit of the campaign with a full week of interactive activities and a powerful artistic collaboration that spotlighted environmental awareness and inclusion.
At the heart of CSI’s Daylight Hour celebration was a large-scale, student-created mural displayed in the Art Gallery at the CSI Library. The mural, crafted from recycled plastic bottles and years’ worth of collected bottle caps, was designed and assembled by students in the Creative Exchange program under the direction of program staff and alumnae Laura Belisle and Jaimee Wieber, working with current CSI student Hansa Pandya, and Sustainability Program Manager Nora Santiago. Students carved the bottles into floral patterns and hand-painted them with acrylics, which were arranged around the Daylight Hour logo, and meticulously assembled using orange and yellow caps.
The mural was completed during CSI’s June Sustainability Internship for Adults with IDD, a pilot experiential learning program that united undergraduate students with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Together, they engaged in hands-on projects such as composting, gardening, hydration data collection, and environmental arts education. The initiative reflects CSI’s broader commitment to sustainability and inclusive learning experiences.
“Each example—the internship, the mural, and the culminating art exhibit—represents another step in the direction of a more just and inclusive society as we reclaim the space of what was once the Willowbrook State School,” noted Crystal Montalvo, Director of Community Educational Engagement at CSI.
The Daylight Hour celebration itself, held outside on CSI’s Great Lawn, included eco-themed activities such as bottle cap tic-tac-toe, origami, and nature-based coloring pages—further extending the campaign’s impact beyond awareness to engagement.
The mural now resides within an exhibit by AusomeTech, a local partner organization that provides computer science and tech education to young adults with autism and other cognitive learning disabilities. The exhibit celebrates the “unspoken brilliance” of artists from both AusomeTech and the Creative Exchange program.
The win also comes at a meaningful time: the Creative Exchange program is nearing the 50th anniversary of its origin, traced back to 1976. As the milestone approaches, the College is considering ways to mark the occasion in 2026.
With the Spirit Award in hand and a legacy of inclusion and innovation, CSI continues to model what it means to educate, empower, and include, all while caring for the planet.
