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Sustainable Living Fair grows |
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Written by Kurt Brighton
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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
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 Rule 1: If you want to draw people to your environmental fair, nail down a heavy-hitter of a speaker, like oh, say, Amy Goodman of the acclaimed radio program Democracy Now.
Rule 1-A: If at all possible, meet this speaker and chat them up at another festival while wearing T-shirts emblazoned with your fair’s logo.
OK, so it wasn’t as contrived as all that. In fact, by the time Kellie and Tony Falbo, two of the founders of the Fort Collins Sustainable Living Fair encountered Goodman at Chicago’s Green Festival, they had already booked the fiery speaker, author and radio personality. Still, it was nice to put a face on the festival for Goodman, in the form of the rapid-fire vivaciousness of Kellie Falbo.
“We ended up talking for a while, and she thanked us for inviting her,” Falbo said. “She’s definitely drawing a lot of attention, that’s for sure. We’ve already sold out 175 exhibitor booths, up from 140 last year. It’s the first year we’ve had a waiting list for exhibitors. It’s also the first year that we filled up our (volunteer roster) two weeks before the fair—all 300 of our volunteer positions.”
But don’t be too quick to credit Goodman’s attendance with the upsurge in numbers. The festival has been growing steadily every year since its inception in 2000 as a student-run event, with more than 7,600 attendees last year despite  inclement weather, and an estimated 9,000 planned for this year. In just two years time, running the fair became unwieldy enough that Falbo quit her job to become executive director of the nascent nonprofit in 2002. She’s been working full-time, year-round ever since to bring sustainability issues to the fore.
“I think one of the best modes of teaching is to allow people to inform themselves,” Falbo said. “By bringing the information and the tools, along with the experts in the field, our attendees have the opportunity to make their own decisions.”
And she’s bringing in popular new innovations like the Natural Parenting Nook, spearheaded by Sunday’s keynote speaker Peggy O’Mara, publisher of Mothering magazine. The workshops feature the benefits of cloth diapers and of breast-feeding, and there are at least 10 vendors and exhibitors attending this year with products and services related to natural parenting. Another new attraction is a “Ten Steps to Sustainability” scavenger hunt, which is designed to be fun while also giving people something that will stick with them longer than that afternoon.
“We have learned over the years that people can walk out totally confused,” Falbo said. “So we’ve found that it’s beneficial when people can have a little map of what they’ve learned and take that home with them. They hit these 10 spots around the fair, learning about everything from used clothing, to local foods, to compact fluorescent lighting, and there’s plenty of information to take home with them.”
In addition to being a wellspring of green knowledge, the fair is also a lot of fun. It’s a chance to see popular area bands like Motorhome, Dubskin, the Caleb Riley Funk Orchestra, and 8Trac.
For Matthew Campbell, whose Bottom Line Band plays first thing Saturday morning, the best thing about the fair is that it’s not only about sustainability—it’s also about Fort Collins.
“The people you see at the fair, these are the people you know, the Old Town Fort Collins community,” he said. “These are people you sit at the bar and drink with, the people who give you your coffee. That’s a big difference from sending your money to some faceless group based in New York.”
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TO GO TO THE FAIR
The 8th annual Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair
• 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15
• 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 16
• New Belgium Brewing, 500 Linden St.
• There will be bands, speakers, workshops, a beer garden, and 175 exhibitors pitching everything from burritos to biodiesel fuel to baby clothing.
• Tickets are $5 per day, and kids under 12 get in free.
• www.sustainablelivingassociation.org/fair/index.html | Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. |
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