Earth Day celebration brings environmental concerns to light
The Calkins Quad was flooded with Earth Day celebrants and student organizations during common hour for a event hosted by Center for Civic Engagement.
Guitar strumming, singing, poetry readings and dancing graced Calkins Quad for the Center for Civic Engagement’s annual Earth Day celebration on Wednesday, April 24.
“We’ve been a part of this event for the past three years. We are really happy to continue to be here because it’s a really good group of people who kind of continually come around and just talk about these issues of peace and issues of climate,” said Adam Hockenberry, president of Peace Action Matters and a senior global studies and political science double major.
The annual event invites Hofstra clubs and outside organizations to come together and share their missions with students.
This year, Coastal Steward Long Island, which works to protect and bring awareness to Long Island’s marine environment; Food and Water Watch, which has a mission of promoting a healthy environment, economic fairness and democracy; and Homecoming Farms, which works to provide educational opportunities for students pertaining to farming, sustainability and agriculture, were present.
“It’s great to have a big event where there are all these other clubs. I think the problem with sustainability is that everyone has their own separate agenda. We want to fight for animal rights and someone else might want to fight to ban plastic, but it’s all community effort,” said Rachael Ferro, a senior religion major and member of Student Organization for Animal Rights (SOAR).
“Our club, SOAR, is really big on reaching out to as many people as we can and informing them about environmentally-friendly choices, so an event like this brings more people together from different clubs and we can communicate [and] come up with ideas together,” Ferro said.
The festival took place during common hour as part of the University’s campus-wide Earth Day discussion. The Student Government Association, Leadership for Environmental Action and Fellowship (LEAF) and Mu Kappa, Hofstra’s chapter of the International Geographical Honor Society Gamma Theta Upsilon, used the day to host interactive information tables.
“We’re promoting all things geography and in geography, there are so many different aspects. All the other tables correlate to ours in the greater sense,” said Christina Paccadolmi, president of Mu Kappa and a senior global studies and geography double major.
“It was an amazing feeling to have so many people, students and faculty, that all share the same beliefs that LEAF stands for,” said Rebecca Bero, a sophomore religion major and treasurer of LEAF. “There was just so much love and positivity while also calling for change.”
