More than 2,000 Columbus residents came out this weekend for Green Columbus' two-day Picture This Earth Day event. With more than 60 work sites, including one at Ohio State, volunteers had the opportunity to clean up areas close to home.
Saturday, people at sites all over Central Ohio cleaned up creek beds, parks and neighborhoods. Others helped with projects in their communities to raise environmental awareness, building compost bins, painting signs and planting gardens and trees.
OSU Green Space, a collaborative student organization that brings together environmental groups on campus, hosted its own work site on the Oval, Saturday. The site drew around 100 volunteers, including both OSU students and Columbus families. The organization aimed to spread information about the negative effects of coal plants, and rally support against American Municipal Power - a company that has proposed a coal-fired power plant in southeastern Ohio.
Instead of organizing a traditional clean-up, the group created a paint-by-numbers mural. Volunteers could show their artistic side by helping paint signs of the positive effects of not building new coal plants and of the negative effects coal has on people and the environment. OSU Green Space plans to present the murals to AMP-Ohio.
Joanna Podrasky, a student in natural resources and a member of OSU's Free the Planet, helped organize the event. Podrasky said that because of both FTP's and Green Space's involvement in cleaning up Ohio's energy sources, they wanted to do something to support the cause.
Green Space members also passed out fact sheets about coal energy and letters for people to sign and send to President E. Gordon Gee, asking him to make a stronger commitment to reducing environmental impact. The letter addressed the contradiction between Gee's position on the board of Massey Energy Company, which has employed controversial coal-mining techniques, and the position he has taken on environmental sustainability at OSU.
"It reflects on all us," Podrasky said.
The letter asks Gee to stand by his promise to make OSU a greener campus and to resign from the board of Massey Energy Company.
On Sunday, Green Columbus held an Earth Day celebration in Goodale Park. The celebration included live music, food vendors, a pedal-powered photo pavilion, workshops, kids' activities, booths from environmental organizations and an appearance by U.S. Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy. Everything sold at the event was recyclable, and band's equipment powered by solar energy.
Although gray skies and light rain moved in Sunday, hundreds of people stayed at the park enjoying the celebration.
April Bohnert can be reached at bohnert.8@osu.edu.
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