About Earth Week

Earth Week is Charlottesville and Albemarle's annual celebration of Earth Day and is an official affiliate of the Earth Day International network. Earth Week was formed in Fall 2001 by a small group of concerned citizens who wanted to reinstitute the local celebration of Earth Day and held its first public event, the Gaia Fair, in Lee Park the following April. Every year since then we have put on an Earth Day celebration encompassing and promoting both our own and other organizations' efforts to increase environmental activism, expanding our program from a one-day eco-fair to an eight-day series of events in addition to the eco-fair. Each year has added an average of three events and 15%-20% increase in overall attendance at festival events. We have also hosted "off-season" events in conjunction with the Festival of the Book and the Virginia Film Festival and held other benefit concerts during the year as opportunities arose.

In 2006, Earth Week joined Virginia Organizing (then Virginia Organizing Project), a 501(c)(3) non-profit company located in Charlottesville, VA which serves as our fiscal agent. Therefore, all donations given to Earth Week are tax deductible.
The 2009 Eco-Fair saw a huge increase in attendance due to a number of factors, including the excellent venue - the Charlottesville Pavilion.  The venue, the participation, the music, the weather, and the dedicated team of diligent volunteers made it what was called the best Eco-Fair ever.  Thanks to all the volunteers, partners, sponsors, participants, and you, for making it happen.  2010 should prove to be yet another step in the right direction.

Earth Week's Mission

In keeping with Earth Day's mission to "broaden the environmental movement worldwide and to educate and mobilize people, governments, and corporations to take responsibility for a clean and healthy environment," Earth Week's particular statement can be summed up in two words: Create awareness. We do this in the following ways:

Make Opportunities for Civil Education

Earth Week works with other area organizations to promote, advertise, and participate in open classes, campaigns, workshops, and forums where all citizens can learn about how environmental issues effect their lives and, in turn, how we can improve our environment. Documentary films, book signings, presentations, and electoral candidate debates have been just a few of the many ways in which we try to involve the public in a greater dialogue on how to improve our community's quality of life through environmental action.

Broaden the Meaning of "Environment"

Earth Week is committed to a holistic definition of the word "environment," teaching others that the term includes much more than ecological issues. Environment effects every thread in the tapestry of our lives and communities, from public health, housing and homelessness, to resource management on the individual, local, and global levels, encompassing the air we breathe, the water we drink, the jobs we hold, the news we read, the clothing we wear, and the food we eat. We are our environment; we form it as much as it forms us. Making and demonstrating these connections is an important part of Earth Week's mission.

Motivate Our Community

Earth Week is dedicated to advocacy and outreach for those concerns which effect our region. To further this end, we encourage citizens to become informed about the environmental issues that effect their daily lives, to change their own habits and behavior patterns, and to use this knowledge to effect the political process— whether by voting in elections, writing representative, or organizing presentations and demonstration—to create policy changes that will benefit us all.

Encourage Hands-On Volunteer Action

Networking with other groups and agencies, we publicize and coordinate hands-on activities for the public to make a material difference in the environment, recruiting volunteers to participate in activities such as
    •    planting trees in riparian buffer zones and reforestation sites;
    •    taking advantage of public recycling methods, locations, and amnesty days;
    •    joining river and stream-bank clean-up crews;
    •    taking to the parks and trail systems to identify and remove invasive plant species; and
    •    providing mini-classes in various water quality sampling techniques.

Want to know more?  Drop us a line at info@earthweek.org