Sustainapalooza 2024 Recap

Hello Cyclones!

Live Green! Campus and Community Engagement Interns, Grayson and Saumya here! 

This semester has been quite exciting as we wrap up this year’s Symposium on Sustainability and Sustainapalooza events and enter the early stages of planning for our Earth Day celebration! We are incredibly proud of how this year’s Sustainapalooza turned out and would love to share some key takeaways of impact and inspiration. As well as highlighting our most recent events, we want to also offer a preview of some exciting opportunities that are fast approaching in the upcoming months!  

The 2024 Symposium on Sustainability, “Past, Present and Future Commitment Toward a Sustainable Future – Celebrating 15 Years of Living Cardinal, Gold and Green!”, kicked off on February 26, 2024, with keynote speaker, Christine Ervin. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy and President & CEO, U.S. Green Building Council, Ms. Ervin spoke on “Leveraging Crisis into Opportunity.” Her presentation is recorded and available on the Lectures Program website. 

On February 27, 2024, Live Green! hosted its most highly anticipated event, Sustainapalooza! This is an annual event hosted by the Iowa State University Office of Sustainability as a companion event to Iowa State University’s Symposium on Sustainability. Sustainapalooza is an opportunity for students to learn more about sustainability (environmental, social and economic) and become inspired to practice sustainability through daily actions and community involvement.  

Sustainapalooza offers interactive GIY “Green-It-Yourself” Centers, opportunities to explore and pledge individual sustainability commitment, green minded giveaways and sustainability-inspired and focused artwork and research, as well as locally sourced food and food ingredients for refreshments. Each year’s event also features additional opportunities for education, engagement and empowerment between representatives of campus and community organizations and the students, faculty and staff of Iowa State University.  

Campus and community members and organizations all came together to express our passions and shared commitments to sustainability, for this year’s event, “Our Green Promise, Our Sustainable Future.” 

This year more than 500 students, faculty and staff attended Sustainapalooza and enjoyed interacting with and learning from nearly 40 campus and community tabling organizations. It was wonderful to see the excitement and empowerment that each group helped foster! If you would like to make connections with and learn more about the organizations that were present at the event, please visit the 2024 Sustainapalooza Events Calendar page to see a full listing.  

The Green-It-Yourself (GIY) Centers are always a fan favorite, and we are incredibly grateful to have been able to collaborate with five outstanding, sustainability-forward organizations to offer this year’s unique hands-on opportunities through four GIY Centers!  

1. Shelf Stable Soup Kit – Attendees had the opportunity to make a homemade mason jar soup mix to provide a quick, nourishing and delicious meal. This was made possible through partnership with ISU Dining, Student Wellness and The SHOP. Supporting and empowering “The Promise of Nutrition.” 

2. Natural Ingredient Cleaning Products – Attendees had the opportunity to create foaming hand soap and an all-purpose cleaning spray to provide simple, personalized and eco-friendly cleaning solutions. This was made possible through partnership with Wheatsfield Cooperative. Supporting and empowering “The Promise of Health and Wellbeing.” 

3. Upcycled Heat/Cool Packs and Plastic Bag Pouches – Attendees had the opportunity to create an upcycled fabric (and rice) handwarmer / cool pack or upcycled disposable plastic shopping bags into a plastic-fused fabric pocket-sized storage pouch to provide infinitely reusable solutions. This was made possible through a partnership with The Workspace at Iowa State University and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Iowa Waste Exchange Program. Supporting and empowering “The Promise of Reuse.” 

4. Upcycled Pay it Forward First Aid Kits – Attendees had the opportunity to create and stuff mini first aid kits to be distributed to community members in need through the Ames Public Library, Food at First and The SHOP to provide support and upliftment.

Visit the 2024 Sustainapalooza website for more information on these highlighted GIY opportunities and how to create your own! 

One of the highest “high- traffic” areas of Sustainapalooza was the clothing swap shopping floor. Students, faculty and staff dropped off gently used, unneeded clothing items throughout January and February to Parks Library, the Memorial Union, and 14 residence halls at Iowa State (as well as bringing them to the event) to offer a great selection of “new to you” swaps. Hundreds of items, which ranged from interview-worthy outfits to kid’s clothes to ISU gear, were donated and swapped at the event. Prior to the event, volunteers spent hours getting donated items organized, folded and sized, organizing the “swapping floor” and dressing mannequins. The clothing swap was a huge success! We started the day with nearly 900 items of clothing and ended with ⅓ being re-homed! Nearly 300 items of clothing were donated at the event. We also collected a bin of non-perishable food donations and over $100 from swappers, all going to support the work of The SHOP, an ISU student organization whose mission is to engage with anti-hunger advocates and serve the student population by increasing hunger awareness and food security. The clothing swap would not have been successful without the assistance of The Loft Resale and the University Bookstore for providing mannequins and clothing racks to display the clothing available for swaps.  

Each year, our team works together to create the components of the central engagement piece of the event, the Green Wall. The focus is on increasing awareness about sustainability and offering informative and interactive opportunities to challenge and empower attendees to think about how sustainable opportunities and decisions impact them in their own lives. This year, the Green Wall wove the theme of Sustainapalooza, “Our Green Promise, Our Sustainable Future” alongside the focus of the Iowa State University’s Strategic Plan for Sustainability in Operations and City of Ames’ Climate Action Plan, specifically related to reduction of carbon emissions – within three primary sections – energy, transportation and waste. Each section provided statistics and information on the impact caused by energy, transportation and waste-related emissions – Our Challenge, as well as information about initiatives of both the University and City toward emissions reduction – Our Commitment and the opportunity to answer two questions related to what we can do as individuals and where we are challenged in implementing changes – Our Promise. Attendees experienced the Green Wall via the Green Carpet (made from repurposed AstroTurf from the ISU Bergstrom Football Complex). Once having completed the three sections of the Green Wall, attendees had the opportunity to empower their promises through two options. First, writing green promises on leaf cut-outs and adding them to the “Tree of Promise.” Second writing green promises on a postcard addressed to themselves (which will be mailed to them February 2025 – reminding them of their reflections and opportunities! 

At the Cy-lebrity Selfie Wall, visitors could “strike a pose” commemorating their attendance at this year’s event! 

Additional highlights included a diversity of sustainability-inspired artworks and posters that were created by students and faculty. We were excited to host many art pieces and research posters from students and faculty. Sustainability research posters were provided by Brady Clausen, Kathleen Delate, Leonor F.S. Leandro, Lisa Schulte Moore, Josiah Pollock, Elmin Rahic, Vijitha Silva and Elizabeth Smith. Sustainability art was exhibited by students from the College of Design Landscape Architecture Program: 

LA 302 – Ecological Design – taught by Adina Cox and Tom Neppl 

LA 478L – Biodiversity Here and Now – taught by Julie Stevens 

To learn more about all of these unique pieces exhibited and highlighted, visit the 2024 Symposium on Sustainability website and the event photo gallery! 

A few other sustainability features and highlights to mention include our partnership with ISU Catering for a variety of delicious and unique refreshment options utilizing locally sourced food, including meat and dairy products, tofu, ISU Creamery ice cream and honey lavender lemonade. In alignment with our commitment to keep Sustainapalooza zero-waste, all tableware was entirely compostable, and all leftovers were donated to Food at First.

In addition, as attendees walked into the event, they could “pin” their hometown on our online real-time map of “Green Promises from Around the World,” and as they interacted with tabling organizations, they had the opportunity to accumulate points, which they could use to earn prizes. Attendees could choose from a variety of greener-living prizes such as buttons, stickers, and magnets, reusable sporks, snack bags, reusable mugs, and more! 

Without the incredible support, energy and creativity of a wonderful team of volunteers, our event would not have been nearly as successful. We were fortunate to have many volunteers donating time and effort to help us in pre-event planning (starting in 2023) and in all that went into setting up, completing and tearing down the event on February 27. GIANT shout out to all of our volunteers: Madison Baughman, Allison Brundy, Grant Buresh, Dawson Chenoweth, Sage Coffman, Sarah Crowley, Stacy Dreyer, Isabelle Gillette, Jesse Hatton, Amelia Hesse, Gina Holtzbauer, Adam Larson, Angela Lorenz, Kirsten Kraklio, Rachel Mead, Richard Mensah, Nicholas Michel, Halle Nanninga, Shelby Nechkash, Jacqueline Nettnin, Celia Neuzil, Hope Nolan, Kai O’Connell, Katherine O’Driscoll, Kaylee Phillips Wellik, Samantha Prigge, Laura Reinert, Erik Rolwes, Elizabeth Smith and Omri Teal. And HUGE shout out to all the individuals on this year’s planning committee: Ella Düster, Jess Kalmar, Faith Lindenfelser, Jacqueline Nettnin, Hope Nolan and Omri Teal. Collectively donating nearly 300 hours, these volunteers and planning committee members worked extremely hard to make it all happen and ensure a fun, inspiring and empowering event for all the attendees – toward a sustainable future! 

For more information about Sustainapalooza, visit the Office of Sustainability: Sustainapalooza webpage. To view photos from this year’s event, as well as past events, view the Live Green! Sustainapalooza Photo Gallery on the Live Green! Website. 

With the Campus Sustainability Month Celebration and Sustainapalooza events under our belts, we are already looking forward to Live Green!’s next event (and final one for the 2023-2024 academic year), Earth Day on April 22!  

Here is a little bit of background in anticipation of this year’s celebration. In 1970, two separate individuals created the concept of Earth Day: peace activist John McConnell, who hosted an Earth Day celebration during the Spring Equinox on March 21, 1970, with help from the United Nations; and U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, who hosted an Earth Day celebration on April 22, 1970, which more than 20 million Americans participated in. Fifty-four years later, this beloved holiday is coordinated by the Earth Day Network and celebrated by more than one billion people in 192 countries worldwide.  

This year we are thrilled to honor Iowa State’s many sustainability initiatives, organizations and accomplishments at our Earth Day celebration, but as always, we would not be able to host this event without the help of our wonderful Earth Day Planning Committee. If you are interested in joining the Planning Committee for our upcoming event, please sign up HERE! This group of volunteers helps us brainstorm activities at the event, advertise across multiple platforms and prepare necessary materials. If you are interested in being on this year’s committee or learning more about this opportunity, please reach out to either of us (Grayson Adickes at gadickes@iastate.edu or Saumya Balaji at sbalaji@iastate.edu). We cannot wait to get started with our Earth Day celebration planning and hear your ideas!