Photos by: Vanessa Vega
In honor of April’s role as Earth Month, the UTRGV Office for Sustainability hosted Earth Fest from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today on the Student Union Quad on the Edinburg campus and will host tomorrow on the Student Union Lawn on the Brownsville campus at the same time.
Chief Sustainability Officer Marinella Q. Franklin said the event is intended to call attention to climate change and advocate for sustainable lifestyle changes that can help address it.
“You know, not everything has to be a challenge or a struggle,” Franklin said. “Some of these things are enjoyable, so we have a lot of great activities to show that, yes, you can start changing some of these habits in a way that you can enjoy.”
Franklin said this year’s Earth Fest holds true to that philosophy. It will have live music, crafts and a variety of booths run by university departments, programs, students organizations, local businesses and local vendors. Franklin added that some local entities will seek out interns for the summer.
A student organization participating in the event is the Environmental Awareness Club. According to EAC Vice President Sofia Martinez, the club will have a table on both campuses with the goal to highlight “the environment around campus.”
“It’s not just going to a park,” Martinez said. “… There’s nature right on campus. Like, you can go and have a walk and you can have native plants and native animals. It’s something that you can appreciate throughout your whole day, instead of just visiting a place.”
The EAC will also encourage students to sign its petition to eliminate pesticide use and introduce more native plants at UTRGV. The petition was started by the university’s Re:wild Your Campus chapter, which operates at UTRGV through the EAC. The organization is seeking to get 1,000 signatures. EAC member Vianey Yong said the club is also looking to add more students to their Brownsville team.
More information about the cause can be found at the organization’s Facebook and its Instagram (@eac_rgv).
Students looking to get involved in environmentalism have a variety of programs to choose from.
The UTRGV Agroecology Program manages two gardens on campus and an off-campus farm. According to the UTRGV Agroecology and Resilient Food Systems Program website, its Garden and Greenhouse are set on 7,500 square feet on the UTRGV Edinburg campus and serve as spaces for both agroecology research and teaching.
In an interview with Pulse, biology professor and Agroecology Program director Alexis Racelis said UTRGV’s on-campus organic community garden provides raised beds of soil for students, staff, organizations and community members to grow crops of their own at a small scale.
Meanwhile, the Hub of Prosperity is a 5-acre cooperative farm on land leased from the Edinburg First United Methodist Church, according to Racelis. The Agroecology program’s website states that the farm has been operating since 2019 and aims to build knowledge and participation in sustainable farming among students and the wider community.
Racelis said the Hub of Prosperity participates in the USDA-funded Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program.
“[This allows us] to provide a small scale, what we call community farming operation, where anybody who wants to learn a little bit about beginning farming … can rent out a small parcel, about an eighth of an acre, and then they can practice farming at a scale which can feed their family and maybe their neighborhood, and perhaps enough for them to sell at a farmers market,” Racelis said.
The Agroecology program also hosts student-led workshops at both the garden and the Hub of Prosperity. A schedule of these workshops and volunteer hours is available on the UTRGV Agroecology website and on its Instagram @utrgvagroecology.
Andrea Maldonado