Courtesy of the Office of Sustainability

On Friday afternoon, members of the College community gathered on the Main Quad for the second part of “Mushroom Fest,”: an Earth Day fair. The first part, the “Mycorrhizal Minds” talk, was held on Tuesday, April 19. Spearheaded by the Sustainability Office in collaboration with a number of student organizations, the fair featured games and activities meant to encourage critical thinking about sustainability. Events included lawn games, a clothing swap, a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream station, live music, climate action information booths and bike tune-ups courtesy of the Yellow Bike Club.

While student Eco Reps and Sustainability Office staff were the primary organizers of the event, collaborators from other areas of the Bowdoin community were instrumental in the planning process.

“Everyone took on different roles and reached out to different student groups that might be interested in teaming with us,” Sustainability Outreach and Program Manager Christina Honeycutt said. “[Organizing the celebration] is very simple when there are a lot of students on this campus who are interested in the spirit of Earth Day.”

One of these student groups was the Fashion Club, which teamed up with Eco Reps Ayanna Hatton ’24 and Emily Jones ’24 to host the clothing swap. In the weeks leading up to the Earth Day celebration, organizers collected clothing donations from students and faculty. The organizers laid the clothing out on the quad on Friday, and attendees explored the selection and could take up to three items each.

“So many of our friends wanted to have new clothing and didn’t want to go out and buy it, whether it was a financial burden or thinking about the impact on the environment,” Hatton said. “We realize how much people have to give and how much people want to add things to their closet, so it’s really cool to see clothes find a new home.”

Eco Reps Angela Delgado ’25, Alex Gates ’22 and Kyra Tan ’23 ran the official Sustainable Bowdoin booth. The team put together short tutorials on easy ways to live more sustainably through recycling, using drying racks and paying mind to electricity use. The booth offered energy-efficient light bulbs and compost buckets as well as a range of sustainability-themed prizes.

The organizers of the Earth Day fair had a mission to show the College community that small steps towards sustainability add up.

“[Through] the issues that we’re talking about and the events that we’ve put together, hopefully [attendees] are able to see the different ways that we can all make a difference, both for the campus and for the planet broadly,” Honeycutt said.

Kyra Tan ’23 is a member of the Bowdoin Orient.