Bethel camps out, goes green for Earth Day

By Clint Harris

On April 22, Environmental Action Club (EAC) hosted a myriad of events on the Green to raise awareness of environmental issues and to celebrate Earth Day.

“Everything was a little bit haphazard,” said Miriam Friesen, senior from Filley, Neb., talking about the planning behind all the activities on the Green, which included a campout the night of April 21-22, a clothing repair workshop, a bike repair workshop, a Critical Mass bike ride, and outdoor games such as Frisbee, kite-flying, and croquet.

“Earth Day falls at kind of a bad time of year for planning things, because everyone’s busy,” said Friesen of the planning stages of the Earth Day activities on the Green.

“I had BIFL orals that day,” said Miriam Regier, a senior from Newton.

“There wasn’t enough wind for kite-flying,” said Regier, “but other than that, we couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.”

Camping out on the Green was also very popular. “It’s been something I’ve wanted to do,” said Regier, “and I finally got around to it.” Regier estimated that there were between 15 and 20 people who actually slept on the Green, although, she said, “we had a lot of people come out and just hang out in the evening. We had a bit of fire, roasted some marshmallows, made s’mores.”

“The clothing repair workshop went really well, thanks to Tricia Lopez,” said Friesen. “[Lopez] volunteered at the last minute and brought her own sewing machine out to the Green.”

Regier added, “Tricia Lopez is just wonderful, it’s who she is. If people wanted to learn how to repair their clothes, she would teach them, but if people wanted to leave their clothes because they were busy or something, she would fix them. Especially jeans.”

“To me, the main point of what we did for Earth Day is to raise awareness, make people think, ‘Oh, what can I do to be more environmentally conscious?’” said Jordan Penner, a senior from Reedley, Calif.

“Hopefully that’s what happened just by being pretty visible, out there on the Green.” Penner added, “It’s just kind of fun to camp out, hang out, throw a Frisbee around.”

The organizers also had serious issues for which they wanted to raise awareness.

“To me, energy consumption is a huge thing. People can play a huge part in it,” said Penner.

“I remember, [during the] summer of ’02, California had a power crisis, and they started running commercials. There were subsidies for [CFL] bulbs, and just by people in California being conscious about it, energy consumption dropped a whole lot, like 20 percent I think.”

“I think if we all got more conscious about it, it could turn things around like pollution and air quality. It’s something that’s really easy to fix if more people thought about it.”