Here comes Earth Day!

Sorry folks, haven't posted a blog in quite some time! Thought I would share some Earth Day information and activities planned for MCC Southern/Dobson location.

First, the MCC celebration information...

We can't fit everything we want to celebrate into just one day, so we are going to have THREE Earth Days this year. We'll have different activities each day, so make sure to stop by the Clock Tower Lawn all three days so you don't miss anything. Heads up...there will be some FREE STUFF available on all three days.

Wednesday, April 20th - We kick off Earth Days with a mini farmer's market. Between 10am-2pm, stop by the Clock Tower Lawn area and visit some local vendors selling everything from crepes to cupcakes, household items to honey, and lots of stuff in between. Please bring cash.

Thursday, April 21st - The Student Life Department is offering STUDENTS a FREE SALAD BAR for lunch! Stop in for a healthy lunch and visit our displays and information tables. The student government also has something neat to giveaway to a few hundred students...

Friday, April 22nd - Time to do your spring cleaning now, because on 4/22, students and employees can bring their unwanted but usable stuff to the Clock Tower lawn area so that others can find a treasure in things that you consider trash. The more people that bring stuff, the more there will be to choose from. It will be just like a yardsale...but FREE! Do not bring anything that can't be easily carried by one person; this means small stuff only, like books, clothing, toys, games, sporting equipment, home decorations, etc. Anything left at the end of the day will be donated to local charity organizations and community partners.

What are we celebrating? Our home planet, of course. It's the only planet we can live on, so we need to bring awareness to ways to protect what we have and make sure it all lasts long enough for future generations to have access as well. The coal and oil we use for electricity now won't last forever. Sick of high gas prices? Find ways to avoid relying on oil, namely foreign oil, and find ways to keep your money in your own pocket. Do you like trees and shade? Well, you need to know ways to conserve paper so we can stop chopping down all those beautiful, lush, and old forests. You can learn all this and more right here at MCC.

Thanks for being green, and we hope to see you for Earth Days!


Here is some history on Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency:

According to Flags of the World, the Ecology Flag was created by cartoonist Ron Cobb, published on November 7, 1969, in the Los Angeles Free Press. The symbol is a combination of the letters "E" and "O" taken from the words "Environment" and "Organism," respectively. The flag is patterned after the United States' flag, with thirteen alternating-green-and-whites stripes.

On April 22, 1970, Earth Day marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Approximately 20 million Americans participated. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeway and expressway revolts, the loss of wilderness, and air pollution suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day proved popular in the United States and around the world. The first Earth Day had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform.

The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 3, 1970. Prior to the establishment of the EPA, the federal government was not structured to comprehensively regulate environmental pollutants.

The EPA employs 17,000 people in headquarters program offices, 10 regional offices, and 27 laboratories across the country. More than half of its staff are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists; other groups include legal, public affairs, financial, and computer specialists.

The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. It has the primary responsibility for setting and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U.S. states and Native American tribes. EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures.

The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts.