{"id":1324,"date":"2013-05-02T20:37:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T00:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2013\/05\/02\/earth-day-festival\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T19:42:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T00:42:00","slug":"earth-day-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/earth-day-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth Day Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>For a seasoned gardener, Furman University isn\u2019t the obvious place to stop for vegetable and flower seedlings. But judging the spread available at Furman\u2019s 2013 Earth Day Festival, it might become one.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Joy Owens is hoping for.<\/p>\n

Every spring, Owens and members of the Furman in the Garden club grow and sell seeds that were produced in a 1\/4-acre farm that is adjacent to Furman\u2019s David E. Shi Center for Sustainability. The annual sell typically nets positive results. However, Owens is hoping the Earth Day Festival will bring more attention to what her club and others like it are doing at Furman.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Furman, we claim to be all about sustainability,\u201d said Owens \u201814 (Hendersonville, N.C.). \u201cThis festival is a way to show it and back up the talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hosted by the Shi Center for Sustainability and Furman\u2019s Greenbelt community, the Earth Day Festival featured a dozen student organizations that are part of Furman\u2019s effort to infuse sustainability into its culture and identity. The university has celebrated Earth Day in the past, but the festival was the first time that Furman showcased its efforts to be green on such a large scale. Bell Tower Road, which runs between Furman Lake and the Greenbelt community, was shut down to transform the area into a carnival-like atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The daylong event included educational booths along with live music and tours of the university\u2019s collection of sustainable buildings. Twelve \u00a0green organizations in the Greenville community took part in the festival, encouraging people to recycle and lead a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle.<\/p>\n

One of the main attractions was Furman Farm, which hosted a petting zoo for the kids–and the kids at heart. In all, an estimated 700 people participated in the festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re eager to partner with our community,\u201d said Angela Halfacre, a political science professor at Furman and director of the Shi Center for Sustainability. \u201cBy having an event of this scale, we can celebrate accomplishments and create new networks. Everything we do will ideally benefit students in terms of connections for research and other opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

LiveWell Greenville, which is a collaboration of dozens of public and private organizations in Greenville, embraced that idea by playing an active role in the festival. By setting up a booth at the event, the organization connected with students and community members, and shared their vision for health living in Greenville.<\/p>\n

Furman and the Shi Center for Sustainability have collaborated with LiveWell Greenville since the organization was launched less than five years ago. Alicia Powers, an assistant professor of health sciences at Furman, helped write the organization\u2019s original grant. LiveWell Greenville has hosted Furman students as interns since its inception.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday exemplifies what LiveWell is about and the types of relationships we need to survive,\u201d said Matthew Manley, community planning coordinator at LiveWell Greenville.<\/p>\n

By hosting the festival on Saturday, April 20, Furman ensured the event would be family friendly. The Environmental Community of Students hosted one of the festival\u2019s kid-friendly booths, focusing on recycling education. At the group\u2019s booth, guests were given pictures of different foods and waste and were asked to separate them into three categories: trash, recycle, or compost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game is for everyone, but kids seem to be most interested in it,\u201d said Jake Crouse \u201816 (Cheraw, S.C.) \u201cThat\u2019s what we were hoping for. We want to educate kids early so they\u2019ll be able do it later and push their parents to do it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the kids weren\u2019t playing educational games, they were getting their faces painted, exploring campus, and cuddling with animals in the petting zoo.<\/p>\n

For community members, the day was a huge success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey love this stuff,\u201d said Hannah Langmuir, a community member who attended the festival with her two daughters. \u201cThey\u2019re all about Earth Day, and they love to be on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a seasoned gardener, Furman University isn\u2019t the obvious place to stop for vegetable and flower seedlings. But judging the spread available at Furman\u2019s 2013 Earth Day Festival, it might become one.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Joy Owens is hoping for.<\/p>\n

Every spring, Owens and members of the Furman in the Garden club grow and sell seeds that were produced in a 1\/4-acre farm that is adjacent to Furman\u2019s David E. Shi Center for Sustainability. The annual sell typically nets positive results. However, Owens is hoping the Earth Day Festival will bring more attention to what her club and others like it are doing at Furman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":1325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centers-and-institutes","category-shi-institute-for-sustainable-communities"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}