Lafayette is a community with a long history of local citizens who care about our environment and work hard to protect it. If you’re looking for it, proof of this is all over our town. Never is it more obvious, though, than when you walk through the annual Lafayette Earth Day Festival and talk to the many locals representing the wide variety of citizen groups and government organizations focused on issues that range from waste reduction and creek clean-ups to gleaning fruit and open space preservation.

Now in its 8th year, this Lafayette Earth Day event was originally organized by the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber remains a strong supporter, but Sustainable Lafayette now serves as the festival’s primary organizer.

Over the years, the festival has been held at various venues, including Lafayette Plaza Park, Stanley Middle School and Acalanes High School.

The 2013 event, held Sunday, April 21, was staged for the second year in a row in and around our beautiful Lafayette Library and Learning Center, which is generally considered everyone’s favorite venue yet and the hoped-for permanent home of the Earth Day festivities.

The library location allows additional indoor classroom activity space and easy proximity to the Friends of the Library’s used bookstore (recycling at its best!) as well as naturally tiered exhibit space in the plaza area with easy access to electricity for the musical entertainment.

Look closely at the photo listing the activities held in the Arts & Science Classroom and you’ll also see that the library provided more than just the space. Two of the Library’s Glenn Seaborg Learning Consortium partners, Lindsay Wildlife Museum and U.C. Lawrence Hall of Science, exhibited as well.