URI celebrates Earth Day with festival

04/23/08 - Student Action for Sustainability sponsored an Earth Day Festival on the Quadrangle yesterday to celebrate the environment and promote renewable energy practices in Rhode Island.The student group sponsored the event during a cloudless spring day. Activities included a rock wall, more than 20 vendors selling all-natural merchandise designed to support sustainable products, a make-your-own trail mix station, a bird feeder-building workshop from the University of Rhode Island chapter of the Wildlife Society and an exhibition of Nick Russell's vegetable oil-powered car.

"The focus [this year] is on energy issues, but there are a lot of other topics presented here today," said Rachel Sholly, an alumna working with URI's Partnership for Energy group, which helped sponsor the event. "Energy is such a hot topic these days, and it's really such an important issue, we wanted to use this festival to help spread awareness and engage students and faculty on all environmental issues."

Other exhibitions included a home waste audit performed by the URI Recycling Office, a clothing vendor selling products made exclusively from sustainable materials from the URI Fashion Merchandising Society and ocean-awareness games from the URI Marine Science Society.

"I think that our generation needs to be more proactive when it comes to environmental issues, and I think it's really cool that URI does," said Rose Cournoyer, a junior environmental and wildlife major. "I know that when I was at [Providence College] they never did anything like this."

The URI Outing Club headed up the customizable trail mix station, and co-sponsored the festivities financially as well as with their appreciation of nature and the environment.

"Since we're very outdoorsy people, we love the environment," said Bridget Griffith, president of the Outing Club. "The environment has to stay around for us to enjoy it, so we donated a lot of money to the production of this event."

Nick Russell, president of the Student Action for Sustainability group, said that planning was the most challenging aspect of producing the festival, and that next year the group will start organizing much earlier.

"We're only students and we only have a certain amount of time to do stuff," he said. "An event of this size you have to start planning the semester beforehand, but it's definitely worth it. Even if we're not directly reducing carbon emissions with the festival, it gets people out there and gets the discussion going."

One group at the event did not focus so much on Earth Day, but that did not stop them from raising money and awareness for their cause during the festival. The Adopt a Doctor group raises money for doctors working in developing countries to reduce the so-called "brain drain" that occurs with the high turnover rate. The irregularity and unreliability of work, the group said, causes local doctors to lag in their studies and their skills.

"We want to provide [these doctors] with the income so they can keep practicing in these countries," said sophomore Talene Kachigian, an Adopt a Doctor representative. "We hope to reach our goal of $1,600 by the end of the semester."

Solarites and Windrites, a vendor at the festival, was also onhand to spread awareness about home and commercially-based alternative energy systems. Max Cover, a representative for the company, said the main problem with renewable energy products is that people feel that windmills and solar panels are an eyesore. This is generally the feeling of potential customers when considering putting panels or mills in one's backyard, but he feels it will change over time. But Cover said he's confident this feeling will dissipate over time.

"No one complains about telephone polls, you don't hear people talk about the coal plant in Fall River, Mass., and these are equally horrendous structures," he said. "Certainly a shift in ascetic values takes getting used to and people have to make their peace with it, but I think with the current political climate I really think that people are looking at alternatives as a positive thing.