An annual Strawberry Festival and Heirloom Plant Sale hosted by a "Garden Studio" course proved popular with the campus community on the final Friday of classes for the 2015 spring semester.
By Sarah Mulnick ’17
Students attending the Elon Community Garden’s annual Strawberry Festival and Heirloom Plant Sale on Friday enjoyed the abundance of strawberry-related food and festivities.
The annual festival on May 8, 2015, featured live music and activities for children such as face painting, fairy hair and games. The food and refreshments served included chocolate-covered strawberries, strawberry lemonade and strawberry ice cream.
“This event raises awareness of the garden,” said Michael Strickland, a faculty member in the departments of English and environmental studies whose spring semester “Garden Studio” course organized the festival. “A lot of what we do is teach about food and where it comes from.”
The festival featured a raffle for a student-made garden bench or a decorated pot of basil. On sale were strawberries and peppers grown this season in the community garden.
Elon senior Allison Hren, the student farm coordinator, has worked with the festival for the last three years. She said the festival can raise awareness to a garden that many people don’t know exists.
“It’s inspiring to see how this one event can bring attention to my favorite part of campus,” she said. “It connects students with food and nature in a way that I don’t find anywhere else on campus.”
Junior Alyssa Adler added that she was glad different organizations came together to put on the festival, because they all brought different audiences to the table.
“All the work has been worth it,” she said. “Everyone’s here and they brought their friends. It’s great because you have so many different people in the [Garden Studio] class and they have different backgrounds, so they bring their friends from different backgrounds. It’s cool that everyone can come together like this.”
The festival was co-hosted by the Department of Environmental Studies, the Elon Center for Environmental Studies, KAO, the Office of Sustainability, Elon Hillel, Elon Academy, the Watson-Odyssey Scholars, the Sierra Club, the Elon University Peace Corps Prep Program, and faculty and staff in the Powell House.