Several DU organizations partnered to present the “Fall Festivus” last Thursday, an event aimed at showcasing various sustainability and health-related groups on campus and encouraging students to become involved with those groups.

“The idea was just to have something that would be fun that would be sort of a fall celebration,” said Chad King, director of the Center for Sustainability on campus.

King said planning for the event started in May with the idea of creating opportunities for student organizations to make themselves more visible earlier in the school year.

“There’s a whole lot of programming in the spring, and it’s a little more sparse in the fall,” said King. “This was an idea of trying to set up an umbrella event to get student groups involved and try to jump start that.”

Co-sponsors of the Festivus included DUPB, the USG Sustainability Committee, Well@DU, Student Life, the Center for Sustainability and Sodexo. More than a dozen campus and community groups also had tables at the event, including Runa tea, DU Vegan and Vegetarian Society and two car sharing programs.
“The groups that I talked to that were tabling thought it was a good event,” said King. “They were pleased with the contacts they got.”

Other sustainability-centered components of the event included a special barbecue at Nelson dining hall, tours of the on-campus sustainability initiatives, two food trucks, a discussion and screening of the documentary The City Dark and a farmer’s market with produce from Leffler Family Farms, which supplies the produce for the Community Supported Agriculture food-sharing program held through the Center for Sustainability.

However, King said the event encompassed more than just sustainability initiatives.

“It started out as sustainability and it grew to be a little larger than that,” said King. “We were trying to include the health and wellness component and anybody else that wanted to get involved.”
The major health and wellness component of the night was the Crimson Classic 5k, a “fun run” around campus that started out as a part of the planning of the Fall Festivus and eventually “took on a life of its own”, according to King.

According to Wellness Program Manager Mandy Sigmund, over 200 people registered to walk or run in the 5k and about 30 people volunteered.

King said he considers the Fall Festivus a success, and hopes people who attended enjoyed the event.
“I hope people took away ways that they could understand more sustainable actions in their community and their personal lives,” said King. “My biggest goal is that people come out here and have fun, so I hope that happened too.”c