“Creation” care
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
The largest Christian music festival in the country, Creation, takes place less than 90 miles from Messiah’s Grantham campus. For four days, tens of thousands of young adults and church groups turn the scenic Agape Farm into a tent city of sorts. With countless campsites dotting the landscape, a wonderful community atmosphere is created. And lots and lots of garbage. Believe it or not, that’s where Messiah College comes into play!
In 2008, transfer student admissions counselor Bryanna Boone got the idea that Messiah could offer a valuable service to Creation organizers and attendees by instituting a recycling program at the festival. That year, Messiah staff, students, and volunteers collected and recycled more than 60,000 bottles and cans.
This year, a team of 10 employees, six work-study students, and six volunteers saved another 60,600 cans and bottles from the landfill, all while chatting up Messiah with nearly 2,000 attendees! This sustainability commitment amounts to a little more than two tons of recycled material during the four-day event.
Watch a video highlighting the College’s recycling efforts at Creation.
Read more about Messiah’s sustainability commitments.
The Alternative Energy Harvest area of the Pennsylvania Farm Show is a relatively recent addition to the country’s largest indoor agricultural display event. Here, at one end of the large Exposition Hall, students and staff from Messiah College’s Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research (the Collaboratory) set up a display of its small-scale biodiesel production process. While this is the first time that the Collaboratory has brought its biodiesel production trailer to the Farm Show, the team has been working over the last five years to perfect a process for converting waste vegetable oil from Messiah’s dining facilities into biodiesel fuel for use in campus vehicles and as a substitute for petroleum heating oils.