Early Earth Day celebration on College Green

While the free cookies and apples encouraged passers-by to visit their booths, organizers of Friday's Earth Day celebration on College Green hoped their slogans would be equally appreciated.

"Bike, walk or take SEPTA" and "Turn off your lights and computers!" were among a number of signs posted at the second annual Earth Day, sponsored by the Penn Environmental Group and 20/20 Vision, a Philadelphia-based organization that promotes environmental movements.

College freshman Kristen Franke, one of the organizers of the Earth Day festivities, said the event's purpose was to "spread awareness of social and environmental causes at Penn."

For instance, Franke said she believes recycling is an important issue that Penn has been slow to address.

And while the University works on implementing more recycling stations around campus, the organizations participating in Earth Day distributed free blue recycling bins to promote recycling off campus.

FarmEcology, a group dedicated to educating people about the importance of locally-grown food, gave away free cookies and cheese cubes.

College freshman Maura Goldstein explained that local food and produce "doesn't have to travel as far to get to stores and consumers," making it healthier and more environmentally friendly than food that has to travel from distant locales.

Another environmentally friendly organization that participated in Earth Day was Next Great City, an initiative that believes that, for Philadelphia to become one of the nation's great cities, all of its neighborhoods must be clean, safe and healthy places in which to live.

Next Great City recommends common-sense solutions to provide renewed energy and strength to Philadelphia.

Joshua Lawrence, a Next Great City volunteer, said his goal is to "educate the public about how to implement small but important ideas, advocating healthy parks, renewable energy and widespread recycling in Philadelphia."

Additionally, Next Great City advocates achievable goals such as maintaining healthy parks, improving transit stops, using clean energy and constructing energy-efficient buildings.

Admittedly, Penn's Earth Day celebration was a little early this year, but Franke believed it would attract more attention if it were done on the actual date, April 22, during reading days.

Engineering sophomore Joan Jose Martinez said, "More people and groups on campus should get involved and make this event bigger because the environment is a really important cause and everyone should do what they can to help."

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