Students, green team members and eco-friendly vendors gathered Thursday afternoon at the George Sherman Union Plaza for the first annual sustainability@bu festival. The event, which ran from 11 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., featured booths from groups such as Climate Counts, BU Energy Club and Keep Local Farms.
Festival coordinators set up numerous tables with laptops in order for students to join sustainability@bu's "Challenge," a call to action for students who want to make an impact on climate change.
Students sign up for the "Challenge" with their individual schools and compete against other Boston University schools by completing monthly tasks. For their September task, sustainability@BU provided members with free travel mugs and challenged students to go one week without using paper cups.
Sustainability Director Dennis Carlberg said he feels that the relatively new program has already gotten the university and the city focused on reducing their carbon footprints.
"It's really phenomenal, what we've been able to do in the last year and a half," he said.
Carlberg said the festival was put together not only to get the word out about sustainability, but also to give the students a chance to see what they can do individually within the effort.
"Everyone has their voice," he said.
Sustability@bu spokeswoman Susan Chaityn Lebovits said the fall festival was meant mostly to show students how they can get involved in green groups across campus.
Lebovits said that the festival mostly got its start with the leadership and organization of Environmental Health and Safety Student Recycling Coordinator Becky Morgan.
"For our first year and with the kinks...I think it's a success so far," Morgan said.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE TREE HUGGERS
Many other BU environmental organizations, such as the Environmental Student Organization, Slow Food and the Organic Gardening Club, attended the festival to spread awareness of green issues.
"Our main goal in spring was to get rid of bottled water," said ESO President Meredith Withelder, a College of Arts and Sciences junior. This year, the ESO hopes to develop a new strategy to get students participating again, she said.
The ESO also participates in cleanups of the Charles River Esplanade, apple picking and other field trips to further support a cleaner community.
College of Engineering junior Natalie Swenson attended the festival to support the creation of a new chapter of the United States Green Building Council. Swenson said the main reason for taking part in the festival was to gauge student interest before starting up the chapter at BU.
"I'm hoping to get a group of students together to make campus buildings to be more sustainable," Swenson said.
CAS freshman Sarah Chudnovsky came out to support local foods with the Organic Gardening Club.
"We get people involved in the little ways [of helping the environment] with gardening," Chudnovsky said. She said she wanted to help spread the word.
These groups were just a few of many that constituted the festival, Lebovitz said.
"We want them to see variety," she said.
MARKET VALUE
Coordinators specifically scheduled the festival to incorporate the BU Farmer's Market, held every Thursday in the GSU plaza, Lebovits said.
Students can find pastries, plants and even homemade jewelry from vendors, while still being a part of the sustainability action.
Dining Services Sustainability Coordinator Sabrina Harper organizes the farmers market every week with the help of some students in setting and cleaning up. She said that the sustainability@bu festival and Farmer's Market were a "natural combination."
"The market has gotten a really positive reception," said Harper. "It embodies sustainability."
Vendors such as Ward's Berry Farm and Gold Meadow Farms supply the market each week with various local and organic food products for students.
Lebovitz said the combination of these market participants and festival organizations brought out a really large crowd.
CAN I GO GREEN TOO?
Other students who attended the festival said they responded positively to the message the organizations were putting across.
"Everyone seemed really enthusiastic," Sargent College junior Michelle Padreza said.
Padreza said after the festival, she would definitely read the e-mails from sustainability@bu to continue participating in challenges.
CAS sophomore Shravani Kakarla said she strongly appreciated that the university coordinated with sustainability@bu to get students involved in reducing the carbon footprint.
"It's really well-organized," said Kakarla about the festival. "I really like the area where you can find seeds."
Other students said they found promise for their own futures through the festival, including CAS junior Florian Dhondt. Dhondt said he is interested in urban planning as a career, and found information at the festival that could support his future in graduate school.
Dhondt said he enjoyed the event and was pleased with the fact that groups were bringing so much environmental awareness to the students.
"I think Boston's students are the activists," said Dhondt. "They set [the event] up really well."
CAS freshman Nelson Delgado said he decided to attend the festival because of his interest in a career dealing with sustainability and the environment.
"I like the environment and I want to go green," said Delgado. "I want to help out as much as possible."
Delgado said he came to the event in hopes of finding more people with ideas and interests like his own, including his hopes for more projects at BU, such as revolving doors that generate power.
THE FUTURE IS GREEN
All of those supporting the sustainability@bu project were out in large numbers to get the word out and hopefully let students see what there is to come for the rest of the year.
"It says that we're really doing something," Carlberg said. "Sustainability is about people, about the students, about the faculty [and] about the staff."
Morgan, Carlberg and Lebovits said they hope that the 4,000 students already involved in the challenge will get BU's population more involved in this cause.
"Just getting involved in the group opens up a lot of doorways," Morgan said.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
