VIRGINIA- A new venue and increased interest from exhibitors and vendors helped contribute to what was possibly the Iron Range’s largest Earth Fest event yet. The free event, sponsored by the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability (IRPS) counted over 1,200 attendees this year at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center on Saturday, April 22, which also is celebrated as Earth Day.
IRPS executive director Missy Roach said they were “really happy” with the new venue.
“It was a great turnout,” she said. Roach said IRPS knew they had outgrown their original venue, and they were excited to be able to work with the city of Virginia to locate at the new event center this year.
In previous years, the event was held in three separate buildings in Mt. Iron (the community center, Merritt Elementary, and Messiah Lutheran Church), with attendees walking or getting rides between buildings.
The new venue located everything under one roof, with plenty of room for the over 60 exhibitors, vendors, and demonstrators who filled the hockey arena floor, as well as ample parking.
There was live music, food, children’s activities, and speakers throughout the day in a separate meeting room.
“We do this for the community,” said Roach.
The commitment to renting the larger venue was a big step for the group, since it was significantly more costly than previous years, said Earth Fest coordinator Marlise Riffel. But the move also gives the festival more room to grow in the future, something that wasn’t possible at the previous location.
“We plan to grow into this new space in future years,” she said. Next year’s Earth Fest is tentatively scheduled for April 27, 2024.
The goal of Earth Fest is to connect people from all over the Range with topics that foster a future that our children can be proud of. “What do we need to do now to leave the Iron Range in better shape than we found it? How can we meet our needs without compromising our grandchildren’s ability to meet theirs? That’s the question we address at Earth Fest,” said the event organizers.
About 60 volunteers helped run the event, which was funded in part by 23 sponsors. The silent auction tied a record for the most money raised from the event.
Inside the arena there were dozens of booths featuring activities for children, educational displays for adults, solar energy information, and electric vehicles on display, locally raised foods, farmers markets, gardening with native plants, environmental advocacy, naturalist groups, information on recycling, and much more. Speakers included talks on climate change, increasing access to fresh foods on the Iron Range, getting kids interested in gardening, how to talk to children about climate change, and the potential of e-waste recycling for recovery of economically-important rare minerals in the area (including essential minerals needed for electric vehicles and batteries).
The session on e-waste recycling was the most popular this year, Riffel said. E-waste recycling will be a major focus of the IRPS group this year.
New this year was a “repair café” where participants got to see how to repair everyday household items, as well as to make printed fabric patches to create a quilt or use to repair clothing.
Over 1,500 pounds of electronics were collected for recycling this year and St. Louis County is getting it recycled (Earth Fest paid the associated fees and cost for the trailer). According to the Global E-waste Monitor, North Americans generate an average of forty-six pounds per capita of e-waste per year. For St. Louis County alone, that amounts to more than nine million pounds of electronic waste each year. Right now, Minnesota only recycles roughly twenty percent of the E-waste it produces. The rest ends up in the landfill. “We have a very long way to go to improve, but this was a good start. The free e-waste recycling collected desktop and laptop computers, monitors, and televisions under 19”.
As in past years, Earth Fest featured a silent auction of local goods and services. The proceeds fund the Community Sustainability Initiative, a Range-wide grant opportunity for area groups to demonstrate sustainability in their own communities. Applications are open year-round and awards are generally for $500. More information is available at https://www.irpsmn.org. For more information on recycling visit www.stlouiscountymn.gov/garbage.
IRPS organizes the Virginia Farmers Market. They also host a major fundraiser in October, their Pasty Festival.