Although the beloved St. Louis Earth Day Festival has been postponed to October 18th, 2020 in Tower Grove Park due to COVID-19, the worldwide 50th anniversary celebrations of Earth Day continued on. On April 18-26, environmental nonprofit earthday365 adapted in the face of the pandemic to bring sustainability to you with an interactive Virtual Earth Day Festival. The virtual festival encompassed over 80 presentations, including local environmental organizations, live talent, yoga, and cooking demonstrations. During the nine-day event, the programming garnered 14,000 views, and because it was recorded, all content is still available to view on earthday365’s Virtual Earth Day Festival webpage at https://earthday-365.org/virtual-earth-day-festival/.
With a commitment to continue to provide sustainability programming in new formats, earthday365 is hosting more virtual events such as the #EatGreenSTL Virtual Symposium: Celebrating the Local Food Movement, which took place on June 15th and can be accessed on their website along with all other upcoming programming. The event focused on thought-provoking discussions with leaders in the sustainable food movement and included workshops, an interview with a Green Dining Alliance (GDA) –certified chef, and a cooking demonstration. The GDA is a year-round sustainability certification program of earthday365 that helps over 120+ restaurants in St. Louis reduce their environmental impact.
The organization is also implementing a new virtual Green Your Home series that gives more in-depth information to greening your home, indoors and out. The series includes topics such as plastic waste, home composting, repurposed crafts, home cleaners, and more. The series’ first program on June 30th addressed recycling and plastic waste, and will be followed by other programming every Tuesday throughout July.
They also hosted a documentary film screening of The Story of Plastic. As quoted from www.storyofplastic.org, the film “takes a sweeping look at the man-made crisis of plastic pollution and the worldwide effect it has on the health of our planet and the people who inhibit it. Spanning three continents, the film illustrates the ongoing catastrophe: fields full of garbage, veritable mountains of trash, rivers and seas clogged with waste, and skies choked with the poisonous emissions from plastic production and processing.”
The public can access all of earthday365’s virtual content recorded and for free by visiting www.earthday-365.org/virtual-earth-day.