Winning Booths at Earth Day Festival 2014

   

The Austin EcoNetwork had a roving presence at the Austin Earth Day festival this year. I was honored to to serve as a booth judge and pleased with the assignment to go around to all the booths (something I've never been able to do when tabling) and scope out the Best of the Fest. There were a LOT of booths that had fun activities for kids and engaging displays for adults. It was quite a turnout and way more difficult to judge than I could have ever imagined. 

 
 
 
Here's a rundown of festival highlights and the WINNER who will receive a free booth at next year's event!

 
Most Memorable (and highly popular): Growin' Together – featuring the trash mandalas and the Rise and Fall of the cardboard empire. An evolution of castle building and destruction and rebuilding really showcased youth creativity, human nature and how much fun can be had with a bunch of used boxes and some packing tape. 
 
Most Absorbing: Craft table at Magellan School booth
 
Most Diverse Activities for Kids: Whole Life Learning Center – seed balls, face painting and more
 
Most Modern & Snazzy: MW Cleaners with their iPad sign ups and "bowties are cool" t-shirt give-aways
 
Most Organized & Useful Info: City of Austin's Grow Green program
 
Most Unique: BabyEarth.com
 
Most Thought Provoking: Sea Shepherd (producers of Whale Wars). Consider this…10 people were killed by sharks last year. 100 million sharks were killed by humans!
 
Most Useful Give-Aways: Austin Water – microfiber cleaning cloths, shower timers, soil moisture sensors and more!
 
Most Helpful & Fun: Compost Pedallers with their bike rides, free bananas and peel-tossing game. They also helped others with booth load in. Way to go y'all!
 
Most Interactive & Far-Reaching: Sierra Club/Beyond Coal Photo booth
 
Best Tasting Samples and Products: Fair Trade Organic Chocolates from Equal Exchange
 
Most Visually Appealing: Design~Build~Live
 
Most interactive/Informative display: Super Green Solutions
 
Most Beautiful: Blessing Flags
 
Friendliest Booth Workers: H-E-B
 
Making the highly technical accessible: Smart Charge Residential
 
Most Generous give-aways: Home Energy Score
 
Most Useful Products Display: TOPS – Texas Office Products and Supply
 
Most high-tech engaging for kids: The Thinkery
 
Most useful NEW information: the joint Urban Patchwork and East Feast booth. Did you know that solitary bees account for the majority of pollinator bees, yet we focus almost entirely on hive-dwelling honey bees. Paige had some hand-crafted bee abodes designed specifically for these solitary bees. 

THE WINNER (drum roll) went to Green is the New Black. Whether the measure was number of people cheerfully working the booth, amount of effort and energy expended to set up the booth (which included the re-location of Professor Dumpster's year-long home to be on site at Earth Day, or number of activities provided, this crew was a festival leader on each front. 8 Huston-Tilotson students plus Dr. Jeff Wilson spent the day enthusiastically sharing their project, demonstrating low-impact living and providing great photo opps with the dumpster.
   

In the spirit of engagement, their "Message in a Bottle" activity of cardboard notes with ideas for Dr. Dumpster got others thinking about ways to live lightly and brainstorm new ideas for the prof himself. They offered face painting, as well as an activity I've never seen before, "rainbow bubble snakes."  The presentation was well orchestrated, from their matching Professor-style glasses to their enthusiasm. Congrats to Green is the New Black whose focus is engaging Black and Latino students in environmental awareness and action.  
 
 
For my own kids, the Fry's Fun Farm petting zoo which offered nearly unlimited access to super cute animals for three bucks, kept them rapt nearly the entire time they were at the festival. 

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