Creation Care Day and Earth Day Celebration

SC MANistry student build outdoor chapel

Students worship on the 77 during the CCD concert

City of Praise

Since 2008, when Southwestern College decided to Go Green, the celebration of Earth Day has stretched into more than a week. Commencing with Creation Care Day on April 16 and stretching all the way to Earth Day on April 22, the celebration of Earth Day has come to include a myriad of campus and community activities involving SC students.

MANistry students clearing trails

This year, Creation Care Day got the celebration started in a big way. Saturday, April 16 marked the first day of SC’s annual Park-It Week, a Green Team initiative to encourage SC students to drive less and raise money to feed the poor. This year 90 students signed up for Park-It Week and they pledged to not drive a total of 347 days during the week of Earth Day. For every student that signed up for Park-It Week, Sodexo, SC’s operations management company donated $1 to the charity Stop Hunger. The Green Team also collected old cell phones to be recycled.

Several other activities took place on Creation Care Day. MANistry, SC’s men’s ministry, held a Trail Cleanup event to create hiking and biking trails and build an outdoor chapel. Green Team Southwestern held an outdoor Creation Care Day Concert, praising the God of our creation with the band City of Praise and guest speaker, Joe Skillen, pastor of Asbury Church in Wichita. Green Team Director, Jason Speegle spoke about the importance of sustainable living at a men’s breakfast at Grace United Methodist Church that morning as well.

City of Praise plays for SC community at Creation Care Day

Sunday, April 17 continued the activities with SC students participating in Grace UMC’s cleanup efforts at Island Park as well as preparing the new Winfield community garden, a collaborative effort between Winfield USD 465 and Green Team Southwestern.

During the weekdays leading up to Earth Day, students groups were still very active with planet celebrating events. Green Team Southwestern students, Kelcie Parrish and Clint Dick presented about sustainable living to the Winfield chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (April 20). Some students planted trees on the SC campus on Earth Day. Students from Leadership Southwestern and Green Team Southwestern collaborated on an educational activity with students at Irving Elementary. The elementary students collected aluminum cans and recycled them. The money they raised was donated to the Winfield Humane Society. During the morning, they learned about the importance of recycling and were able to plant some trees.

SC students Sarah Rommelfanger and Christian Camacho plant a tree in front of the Welcome Center

Sarah working in the Community Garden

At SC, Earth Day is becoming more than just a one day celebration. Our goal is to create a culture in which we treat every day as Earth Day.