With preservation and impact on the mind, students, faculty and staff at the University of Rhode Island celebrated the Earth with fun and play on the quad.
The URI Student Action for Sustainability held its annual Earth Day on the Quad event on April 22. Brought together by Earth Day, various groups spread knowledge of their different causes.
All advocating for their own causes, the event featured different clubs and organizations from URI and the local community, including URI Habitat for Humanity, the URI Horticulture Club, Food Recovery for Rhode Island, Pop-Up PVD Thrift Shop and the URI College of Environmental and Life Sciences.
A space to celebrate our planet on Earth Day is extremely important, according to third-year Kyle Jogger.
“It’s great,” Jogger said. “Sustainability and the environment, the Earth overall, are important now more than ever with things like climate change and whatever comes with that. It’s very important that students, especially at the grassroots level, are organized and just celebrating that.”
Organizations used the quad as a space for these groups to intermingle and spread ideas and knowledge of environmental safety and preservation between each other. Through games, plant pot painting, giveaways and presentations of physical models, organizations spread their cause to the attendees and passersby of the event.
Some of the attractions that drew students to the quad included clothing reuse pop-up shops and exchanges, along with a petting zoo, which featured baby goats.
Throughout the event, the many bands of the URI Musicians Guild kept the mood high with different genres of music, including many of their own original songs.
As a smaller club, the Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Student Association found the event helpful to get their name out there, according to Jogger.
“We were recently recognized by the Student Senate a few weeks ago,” Jogger said. “We’re really trying to get the word out about our club. Overall, the mission is sustainability.”
Taking action now is the most important step, according to Jogger.
“I would say just invest now,” Jogger said. “It’ll pay off in the future. The whole point of sustainability is to enjoy what you have now, but also enjoy it in a certain way that you can preserve for future generations.”
The URI Young Democratic Socialists of America were spreading their cause of the environmental impacts of generative Artificial Intelligence while giving out seed bombs that individuals can plant.
Starting to make an impact on the environment begins near you, according to second-year Ameilius Wolferseder.
“I would say it starts with your community,” Woferseder said. “I think the biggest thing you can do is educate yourself and learn about grassroots organizations near you and learn what they’re doing to help the environment and see how you can aid in that.”
Protecting our environment can be simpler than it seems, according to second-year Zachary Sanita.
“Continue to be green,” Sanita said. “Continue doing green things that you see around you. Try in any way you possibly can to just be green.”
For more information on URI SAS, visit their Instagram page.
