Earth Fest brings together local organizations under sunny skies

High Street was alive with the sounds of music, children playing and vendors chatting at the nearby farmers market during Earth Fest — Oxford’s annual Earth Day celebration hosted by the Miami Environmental Professionals Association (MEPA) on Saturday, April 25.

A week packed full of nature and sustainability related events led up to the festival. Earth Week, hosted by Associated Student Government (ASG) and Student Sustainability Council (SSC), featured events from trail cleanup to free plant potting with recycled soda cans.

John Day, ASG secretary for Infrastructure and Sustainability, said that collaborating with Miami Activities and Planning (MAP) was exciting and brought out over 80 attendees.

“We had the plants picked out and the pop cans we used as planters,” he said. “We gave these out for free to students. It was a really big success. The plants ran out within the first hour and 15 minutes or something, so we're definitely excited to partner with MAP in the future.”

Day said that this year’s Earth Fest has been particularly exciting because it has resulted in new collaborations and opportunities for newer environmental organizations, such as Students for Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Youth Preparation for Electronics Education (HYPE), which works to refurbish e-waste and ensure that it is properly reused and recycled.

Luke Macenski, a sophomore computer engineering major, tabled with HYPE during Earth Fest. He said that it was a good way to put the club’s name and mission out there.

“Battery recycling [on campus] is a really good step, but I wanted to take it further, so I placed drop boxes in a couple buildings around the university,” Macenski said. “We collect things from ink cartridges to any kind of smaller devices and our goal is to reuse it or properly recycle it, just so everything gets to the right people.”

Macenski hopes the increased visibility will result in more drop-offs. The group had a bin at their table and has also placed several across campus in places like Armstrong Student Center and McVey Data Science Building.

Tables run by various on and off-campus organizations circled the Uptown Parks to promote their cause or provide fun activities and small gifts to attendees. Student groups included clubs focused on a wide array of topics like botany, marine biology and the Miami Geological Society, which did rock painting with the community. One group of students ran a table sharing their experience rehabilitating native plants with the Myaamia Center.

MEPA President Samantha Gaines said months of work went into the event and it was nice to see so many community partners come together, especially with an influx of off-campus partners and one-third of the organizations being new to the festivities.

“Our outreach with the local community businesses has grown because the student organizations are pretty on top of it,” Gaines said. “They are very aware of it, but the local organizations sometimes aren’t aware of it, so we've seen a real increase in that over the years as they hear about it from other local organizations and they want to join, or they just see us Uptown. But I would definitely say it's gotten bigger and better every year.”

Local businesses, like RedLife Coffee, supplied raffles and free concessions. Off-campus organizations ranged from small businesses to political advocacy. Gaines also said annual staples of the event, such as the live music and EcoReps smoothie blender bike drew excitement.

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“Everybody is so kind and willing to work with us and be patient with us,” Gaines said. “It’s come together very well this year and I’m just absolutely thrilled to see it’s even better than my expectations.”

kennelse@miamoh.edu