This year marks the first annual Fall Festival, hosted by EFFECT, Masters’ sustainability initiative. In the midst of a national movement to encourage discussions surrounding climate change and environmental action, EFFECT is organizing a week of community-wide activities to promote environmental awareness and education. 

Following the screening of the documentary “The Biggest Little Farm” on the Friday before the week of the Fall Festival, the festival was set to begin with a “Compost on the Quad” event and school-wide observance of Meatless Monday during which students and faculty would be invited to compost dining hall scraps on the quad after school. However, the event was postponed to the following day due to inclement weather. The events that followed included a hike and trail cleanup, community garden planting, t-shirt upcycling, a straw campaign and a CARbon day on Friday. 

Co-President of EFFECT Sophia Forstmann hopes that the Fall Festival will maintain student activism and action surrounding the environment. She said, “We decided to do the Fall Festival before Thanksgiving break that also touched on climate activism to keep the momentum following the Climate March going and I think we just wanted to broaden the scope of EFFECT.”

During the 2019 Green Week in mid-April, Brock worked with EFFECT to organize a Meatless Monday, but it wasn’t as expansive as it will be during the Fall Festival. Forstmann said, “This year it’s going to be completely meatless including the salad bar, and sandwich station and they [Brock] really embraced the idea which is great because we demonstrated a lot of student interest.” 

EFFECT works throughout the year to maintain the Masters’ composting program, sustainable community outreach and maintenance’s use of energy. EFFECT’s goal is to continually engage with and excite community members, as described by Forstmann. The program’s leaders hope that they will soon be able to send out school-wide emails when important environmental events happen. 

As the holiday season approaches, EFFECT hopes that the Fall Festival will motivate community members to learn about the environmental impacts of their travel habits and learn about carbon offsets that combat emissions of harmful fossil fuels. The last day of the Fall Festival (CARbon Day) will give students an opportunity to calculate the carbon footprint of their transportation to school and travel plans.