Columbia group hosts sustainability fair

The fair featured 36 booths with sustainability ideas.

By Megan Swieca

Published Sept. 28, 2010

The Mid-Missouri Peaceworks’ Center for Sustainable Living and 31 other co-sponsors from around the state hosted a sustainability fair Sunday at Columbia College.

The fair featured 36 booths, nine workshops, three mini-solar tours and keynote speaker Larry Rice, a reverend and the founder and president of New Life Evangelistic Center and Missouri Renewable Energy. He talked about making sustainability accessible to all, especially the lower-income class.

The fair focused on all types of consumers. People new to the sustainable lifestyle were able to learn about what a sustainable lifestyle consists of and learned tips on how to further it.

Others, such as Leeton resident Rose Ferguson, benefited from a mini-solar tour where she and her husband were educated on Grid Intertied [sic] Solar PV plus Geothermal Heating. The Fergusons own 40 acres of land in Leeton.

“We are interested in getting off of the grid,” Ferguson said, talking about living off of solar panels instead of general electricity and power lines.

Education is key when it comes to sustainability, volunteer Liz Pazzolo said.

“(Sustainability) has always been very education-based,” Pazzolo said. “It just makes sense.”

Co-organizer Amy Dove said the fair was a community-and family-centered event. The workshops are geared toward educating adults and this is the first year children’s activities have been introduced.

Creative Days Art Studio in Columbia teaches children how to reuse recyclable materials to make crafts. They hoped parents would learn how many of those projects could be done in their homes.

Many of the businesses that had booths at the fair, including Creative Days, were also connected through My Green Cities.

My Green Cities is a new sustainable lifestyle development company for which Columbia is the pilot city. The company has an iPhone app and searchable database that will link customers to locally owned businesses. Eighty businesses in Columbia are now participating.

“Columbia was the right demographic for what were looking for, because of the colleges, since we concentrate so much on new media,” My Green Cities Developer Arianna Parsons said.

The point is for customers to express a want for certain sustainability efforts, such as disposable cups at coffee shops, and if enough customers express interest the businesses will respond, Parsons said.

Parsons said face-to-face communication with large businesses is difficult, and that is why they focus on small businesses and their sustainability efforts.

“We hope to inspire people to communicate more with businesses,” Parsons said.

MORE has created residential centers where the once homeless live educating each other through hands-on green techniques, such as dome home construction, greenhouse gardening and home biodiesel production, all which were discussed during his lecture.

“The main issue is that we need to tread lightly,” Dove said.

Dove, an MU alumna, has had a long passion for sustainability. She walked into the Peace Nook the first day it opened and went on to volunteer. Eventually Dove became a part of Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, which runs the Peace Nook.

Appliances, containers and other things are so cheap people don’t bother to repair them, and instead just throw them out, Dove said.

“We live in a society of tremendous waste,” she said.