Production Manager, Cassie Kibens takes a look at Meramec’s Earth Day celebrations.
By: Cassie Kibens
Production Manager
Over ten booths took over the quad outside the STLCC-Meramec student center on Wednesday, April 23 for the Earth day celebration. The event was hosted by service learning and the environmental design and stainability committee.
“It’s something that’s near and dear to me,” Jessie Bacon, media associate, said. “And since the committee exists on campus I decided to take part in it. Debbie [Corson, service learning] has been great organizing it so it’s just been kind of a natural fit for the committee to team up with her to do this.”
Amanda Orwig, nursing student, volunteered at a booth for the biology club during the Earth Day event. Orwig spent a day cleaning up the creek behind the South County Education Center on April 10. It was Orwig’s first time volunteering, and was a requirement, but Orwig plans to volunteer again because she said it felt good to volunteer.
“I’m an outside person, so just being outside and cleaning up I really enjoy that,” Orwig said. “To know that I made a difference what little bit I did do, that was my main thing. To be a part of something.”
While Earth Day was the day before, Bacon thought it would be more beneficial to have the event on a Wednesday because there would be more students on campus to participate. The students who attended the event and visited at least five booths received a free lunch.
“The idea is they might find interest in something they didn’t really know about before,” Bacon said.
The Campus Garden Initiative club was also at the event. The club received club status on Tuesday March, 4 at the Student Governance Council meeting. Lillian Pride, president of Campus Garden Initiative, took over the reigns of the project from former Meramec student Deborah Caby, who submitted the idea for the Campus Garden Initiative and Brown Bag Cafe as part of her honors class assignment.
“The campus garden initiative is a club we started in order to give students on campus who have food insecurity a way of addressing their own need,” Pride said.
The Campus Garden Initiative Club hopes to submit the plan by the end of the semester or before the end, according to Pride. She also hopes to grow vegetables like carrots, lettuce, onions and kale.
“We want to work through the summer to develop our leaders so that it can really be launched during the fall semester of 2014,” Pride said.
Pride is working with the director of the garden at Florissant Valley, Mark Manteuffel to find sources for the items needed to run the garden. Pride envisions another goal for the future.
“One of the things I would actually love to see happen, and he’s trying to do at Flo Valley and also at the other campuses is to actually start an agriculture program at St. Louis Community College,” Pride said. “That’s kind of where this is all headed. That’s how I see it.”
