With the current stay-at-home orders prohibiting social gatherings, Earthday365 has postponed its St. Louis Earth Day Festival until Oct. 18 in Tower Grove Park and will instead host a series of virtual events on its website from Saturday, April 18, to Sunday, April 26.
While the decision to postpone was not an easy one, Courtney Casteel, marketing and communications coordinator at Earthday365, said there’s a silver lining in going virtual.
“As a nonprofit organization, Earthday365 has relied heavily on the St. Louis Earth Day Festival as a key source of its income,” she said. “Postponing the festival to Oct. 18 has created financial impacts on the organization, just as most organizations and businesses are facing similar challenges during the pandemic. I feel really confident and personally inspired at not just our team’s efforts, but the global efforts to celebrate Earth Day virtually.”
The virtual festival page, which will go live the morning of April 18, will feature daily events such as a discussion on environmental law with Great Rivers Environmental Law Center; live tours of a commercial composting facility, a recycling material recovery facility and the St. Louis Aquarium; a virtual happy hour with Young Friends of Earthday365; and a Food Day on April 21, which includes segments like “Cooking with Bugs,” “Chocolate-Making with Kakao Chocolate” and more. Mayor Lyda Krewson will even make an appearance, giving a speech at 10:30 a.m. on Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22.
“We’ll have all our live programming linked on the page and, after each session is complete, the video will stay online for the rest of the event,” Casteel explained. “In these hard times, our virtual festival has the opportunity to bring together communities far and wide to honor our shared home, the Earth. That’s something that is a beautiful light in these challenging times.”
Click here for a schedule of events.
Brenna Sullivan is an editorial intern at Sauce Magazine. Sauce Magazine is a partner of St. Louis Earth Day.
This article appears in April 2020.