On April 19, the City of Palo Alto held its annual Earth Day Festival at the Palo Alto Art Center to celebrate sustainability and raise environmental awareness.
The event was kicked off with a short speaker program welcoming the community by Mayor Vicki Veenker, City officials, and the Youth Climate Advisory Board President. In total, over 30 booths were set up throughout the venue. They hosted several local organizations and city departments, including the Palo Alto Fire Department, City Library and Student Climate Coalition.
Among these booths was Environmental Volunteers, an organization that offers K-6 programs in environmental education across the Bay Area. Leslie Fox, a member of Environmental Volunteers, highlighted the importance of the Earth Day Festival in getting youth involved in caring for the planet.
“That’s [youth] where the biggest change is going to come from: raising our standards, saying no to oppressive practices, putting it [eco-friendly policies] into law and changing minds,” Fox said. “The world is definitely closing people off from nature a bit, so it’s great to see kids being interested in these things.”
The Earth Day Festival is in line with the City’s 80×30 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan to cut carbon emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2030. Throughout the event, City representatives shared information and resources on how to adopt electric-powered alternatives, conserve water, repair household items for reuse and get involved in environmental opportunities.
Youth Climate Advisory Board Chair Aiden Miao said encouraging climate activism is another key goal of the Earth Day Festival.
“We do a lot of climate work with the city and work with their policy and initiatives,” Miao said. “Youth are probably the most impacted by climate change because they’re growing up with it, so it’s really inspiring to see them having a say in what happens with the city’s climate policies.”
Another booth, run by the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, had Sequoia the Bald Eagle, whom attendees could pet during the event. Marlon Casper, zookeeper at the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, explained how the Earth Day Festival gives residents a chance to learn about lesser-known areas of ecology and environmental preservation.
“A lot of people actually don’t have information about some of the animals we have,” Casper said. “Animals like these [Sequoia] had been on the endangered list, but over time have come back into the area, so it’s nice to give people information for us and animals to coexist together.”
Fox said the city’s Earth Day Festival gives local organizations a platform to share their missions and spread environmental awareness to the broader community.
“We’re just trying to get people to fall in love with nature,” Fox said. “[We do that by] getting people interested in nature by being out here, talking to people and showing them what we do.”
