When Woodstock was held over three days in 1969, over 400,000 people descended upon a farm in the Catskills to celebrate “3 Days of Peace and Music."
This afternoon, a few hundred people descended upon Greene Street for four hours to promote sustainability and raise environmental awareness through “peace and music”, Woodstock-style, at Earthstock.
“Earthstock is our Earth Day festival,” USC Office of Sustainability intern Austin Sutherland said. Sutherland explained the festival was modeled after Woodstock, using the themes of peace and music to raise awareness for sustainability.
Sustainable Carolina partnered with Healthy Carolina Farmers Market and a multitude of local environmental and social advocacy groups to promote sustainability, environmental consciousness and the importance of eliminating your carbon impact.
“A lot of people don’t even know what sustainability is, or what to do about it,” third-year environmental science major Mark Finley said. Finley, a Sustainable Carolina member, was running a table that repurposed used water bottles from the Russell House dumpster into holders for flowers and plants.
Along with the crafts and sustainability projects, there was an eno forest set up by the fountain, yoga on Davis Field, a bike-powered smoothie bar and free merchandise giveaways lining Greene Street.
Omega Phi Alpha, a service sorority, also partnered with Earthstock to shed light on another issue — LGBTQ positivity.
“LGBTQ rights involve peace and involve cooperation, which are a lot of the same themes that Earthstock seems to be wanting to promote,” OPhiA member and fourth-year student Lizzie Utset said. Utset and her sorority sisters were painting people’s hands to decorate a rainbow flag, the symbol for the LGBTQ community.
There was certainly no shortage of student organizations or local non-profits on hand to promote Earthstock’s ideals, but the street was all but bare of students.
“They should have marketed it more... if there were more people I think it would be more fun,” first-year public health student Savannah Crow said. Crow remarks that the 35,000-person campus population could make a huge impact on the environment by simply keeping sustainability in mind.
Whether it was from a lack of advertising or a campus-wide indifference towards environmental issues, the low attendance highlights the lack of sustainability awareness on campus, which is the very essence of Earthstock’s mission.
The crowds didn’t reach Woodstock-levels, but a lineup of student musicians performed for Earthstock attendees throughout the festival. The Dames, a band based in Columbia, played hits like “Mr. Brightside”: not necessarily a quintessential peace-and-love song, but a classic nonetheless. Sawyer Rice and Brook Herring also performed on Greene Street.
Earthstock concludes the big events for the Office of Sustainability for the year, which included a Green Job Fair and Reclaimed Runway.
“We needed to bump it up a little bit,” Sutherland said of Earth Day, which falls right before finals and was the focal point of Earthstock.
While the festival has come and gone, the Office of Sustainability and Sustainable Carolina will continue to promote environmental awareness on campus, and hopefully reach a few more people.