After months of work and planning by Fairfield’s Student Environmental Association (SEA) and the Environmental Steering Committee (ESC), the University community will soon participate in the three-day, weekend-long festivities to celebrate Earth Day 2007.
Friday, April 20 through Sunday, April 22, students and faculty can attend ecofriendly events on campus in hopes of promoting campus-wide environmental awareness.
“This is an awareness campaign which we work all year for, and this weekend is something we wanted very much to happen,” said SEA President Courtney Siegert ’07. “We’re asking that everyone comes.”
For the past three years, SEA has resurrected and commanded Earth Day activities, including more events over several days, compared to past years’ events sponsored by different groups on campus. Last year, the group sponsored campus-wide recycling contests, a beach cleanup and petitioned for the school to hire a recycling coordinator.
Jim Fitzpatrick, assistant vice president for student affairs, said, “It’s been amazing to see collaboration between faculty, staff and students that has enabled this event to grow.”
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 20, 1970, and more than 20 million Americans participated nationwide. Gary Nelson, a former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin and an avid conservationalist, developed the idea to model Earth Day after successful anti-war protests, according the Wilderness Society.
According to Siegert, this year’s Earth Day will be the most ambitious one at Fairfield.
A “green” lunch will take place Friday in the Barone Center’s dining hall for students and the Oak Room for faculty, where stations will tell individuals the source of different foods and explain the meaning of a waste-free meal, according Siegert.
A garbage pile will also be on display “to bring about awareness to the amount of food and other waste generated in the dining venue in one day,” said Dina Franceschi, a member of the Earth Day Subcommittee of the ESC and associate professor of economics.
If piles of trash are not appealing, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” will be screened over the three days at 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the BCC first floor lounge.
Activities will take place throughout the weekend, but Sunday’s events will offer more opportunities to be outdoors. SEA will lead Fairfield Beach Clean-Up, its annual event, from noon to 2 p.m. This is when students will be bused to local beaches to help clean up.
The weekend will conclude with an Earth Day picnic dinner and Green Fair in the Oak Room from 4-8 p.m. In addition to live bands, vendors involved in the Green Fair will present and sell environmentally-friendly products. Local Connecticut-based groups will participate, including Spew No Evil GreenCare, E, The Environmental Magazine, Natural Neighborhood and Clean Water Action.
According to Fitzpatrick, the events will be funded through the Student Affairs budget and funds from SEA. Students attending Sunday’s picnic will not need to swipe their StagCards. By having several free-of-charge events, Siegert hopes for increased turnout.
“I think it’s really important for students to be more aware of concepts and messages stressed by these events,” said Allison Daly ’08. “I really think they should because this school needs to do more when it comes to the environment.”
Fairfield is not alone in its environmental endeavors. In New England alone, there are several universities, including Yale, Connecticut College, UMass, Dartmouth, MIT and Suffolk University, celebrating Earth Day with daily or weeklong events, according the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Besides Earth Day weekend, the seven residence halls on campus will compete in a recycling competition, which began on Friday, April 13 and will conclude at midnight on Earth Day. Dorms compete by filling up their assigned receptacles with cans and bottles. Whichever hall has the most recycled materials will win a dorm-wide party and a flat screen television for their lounge.
“We are hoping this competition among the dorms will jump start ongoing recycling awareness among the students on campus,” said Franceschi. “It is the beginning of the momentum we hope to carry through to next year.”
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