Updated as of Sept. 30, 2024.
University of Kentucky families gathered on Greg Page Lawn for the Sustainability Festival hosted by UK Recycling, UK Sustainability and UK Graduate Housing.
This annual event, held on Thursday, Sept. 19 at 5:30 p.m., brought together sustainability-focused organizations including Campus Kitchens, UK Entomology and Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, to raise awareness and promote eco-friendly practices.
“We want to make sure we’re focusing on gathering the family unit as well, and giving opportunities for people to bring their kids to events and interact with sustainability,” University of Kentucky Zero-Waste Specialist, Ryan Lark said.
Unlike many campus events, which primarily cater to staff and students including the Campus Kick-off Planting Party, Pop Up Thrift Shop, DIY Day, but not many for families to bring their kids and interact with sustainability.
“We want to make sure that we’re providing opportunities for them to get involved with sustainability,” Lark said.
The festival started in 2018, paused during the pandemic, and was brought back last year.
Through the festival, families are able to interact with booths, learn how to properly recycle and are given wastebaskets as well as reusable tote bags.
As soon as Eyitayo Akomolafe walked into the event, she realized that her efforts to be more sustainable had missed the mark, she had been recycling incorrectly all along.
“That’s the beautiful thing about coming here, you get to learn to do things,” Akomolafe said.
The organizations came to promote a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way of living.
Junior Graciela Martinez was looking forward to her first tabling event with Urban Forest Initiative which is a UK-run initiative that supports the preservation and promotion of ubran tree canopy.
“We are really excited about today because we are doing outreach, we’re trying to get kids and adults interested in trees and how they can use trees to help out their community,” Martinez said.
Getting the families and children involved with sustainability hands-on while letting them know that this happening in their community was something important to Lark.
“Making sure that people get involved with (sustainability) at an early age is really fun to see,” Lark said. “This (is) a really nice event that we like to have that is more family focused.
