Living Earth Day, Everyday!

Earth Day in St. Louis meant the 21^st annual St. Louis Earth Day Festival! This was a huge event, undaunted by tornadoes from the previous day and consistent wind and cold rain, and featured live entertainment, speakers, and hundreds of vendors, artists, businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations.

The St. Louis Earth Day Festival is held in Forest Park (which also hosted the 1904 World’s Fair). This year the theme was “Living Earth Day, Everyday.” Embodying this theme, the St. Louis Earth Day organization not only puts on the Festival, but also hosts the Earth Day Symposium each fall.

This year, the Coalition held a coloring contest for kids aged 1-12. The coloring page, entitled “Clean Energy, Clean Water,” featured a wind turbine, a clean stream, as well as a house with solar panels, a rain barrel and a rain garden. The back of the page asked kids to match those terms with descriptions. The idea was that the coloring page would both expose the kids to rain barrels and rain gardens, as well as teach them a little about how they function.

For the winners of the contest, we had fabulous prizes donated by the St. Louis Zoo, Science Center, and this cool interactive children’s museum called the Magic House. The people who designed the coloring page for us also donated coloring books for the winners. Although the rain and the cold wind made coloring difficult, we still had around 25 official entries, and even more who took sheets home with them. While the kids got to color, MCE staff had the opportunity to engage their parents on the work that we do, and hopefully stir up some more interest in our upcoming events.

A couple of days before Earth Day, I went to Crossroads College Prep to talk to their Social Justice group, who would also be volunteering at our Earth Day booth. The small group of 7^th and 9^th graders were extremely well-informed for their age (which I found out later was thanks to Jane’s efforts over at Audobon!). They had learned a great deal about drinking water and wastewater, so I chatted with them about stormwater and green infrastructure. Along with Crossroads Ambassadors, these kids were a great addition to our Earth Day booth, and valiantly stuck it out through the wet weather.