Seton Hall will host its annual Earth Day celebration, Eco-Fest, on the Green on April 18.
The Ecology Club will be running this year’s event, with co-sponsorship from the Student Government Association (SGA)’s Blue Goes Green initiative and outside sponsors, including Coca-Cola and Ben & Jerry’s.
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Sarah Yenesel/Photography Editor Eco-fest will include food trucks, games, music and more.[/caption]
Gabrielle Hunt, a senior diplomacy and environmental studies major and president of the Ecology Club, shared via email that the event will be from 12 to 4 p.m. on the campus Green.
The Environmental Studies department will be tabling there to teach students about topics such as how to be involved in the campus garden, why fermented foods are good for you, why palm oil is bad for the environment and more about genetically modified organisms (GMO).
Festivities throughout the day will include food trucks at 12:15 p.m., games, contests with prizes, music and a yoga class. The community will also be gathering to show their gratuity to Mother Nature for her “beauty and abundance.”
Ben & Jerry’s will be on campus during the event to award any student with a free scoop of ice cream (options even include a vegan scoop), as long as they answer an environmental-related question correctly.
Hunt also shared that campus clubs and organizations are welcome to table and promote themselves during this event, and should contact her if interested.
“At the most basic level, I hope that the SHU community learns something new about environmental ‘friendliness’ – or even just about the environment in general,” Hunt said. “Every year, people will post about how there’s ‘free Ben & Jerry’s on the Green,’ but won’t necessarily connect that very small detail of the celebration to the broader environmental message of Eco-fest. At a deeper level, I hope seeing a concerted event to environmental consciousness animates and inspires more people to become involved in campus environmental efforts, like advocating for a permanent Environmental Studies program, or continuing to push for sustainable building practices in future renovations.”
Violet Reed, a junior English major and head of Blue Goes Green, shared in an email that they will be tabling during the event to inform students on how to take environmental action. They will also be handing out reusable coffee cups that are good for hot and cold drinks.
“I would like Seton Hall to see how hard we have worked on the Eco-Fest [and to] understand that our efforts to make this day fun an educational for them correlates to the importance the health of the earth is to us, and should be to them,” Reed wrote. “I would also like them to understand that even though our news cycles pronounce doom and gloom incessantly, there is a lot of hard-hitting, impactful work being done in New Jersey for the environment.”
Hannah Sakha can be reached at hannah.sakha@student.shu.edu.
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