We want to run a free, arts-oriented Earth Day celebration in Skeleton Park this spring. Specifically, we want to provide the all-ages Kingston community a space to come together on Earth Day and reflect on the climate crisis through creative practices. We are hoping to offer a variety of artistic activities, including collaborating on a large portable mural for local climate protests, decorating used t-shirts with climate slogans, making buttons that can be worn to raise climate awareness, and potting wildflowers with attached educational leaflets to encourage people to start pollinator gardens. We also want to incorporate music, poetry, and nature therapy into the event with guitar playing, singing, spoken word poetry, and group meditation.

This event will also be home to the final celebration of our currently underway poster and button contests, which challenged the youth of Kingston to design posters and buttons which imagine a “fossil free” Kingston – in alignment with 350 Kingston’s current campaign to demand a 50% city-wide reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

This awesome project builds off our successful 2022 Earth Day event, where we invited the surrounding community to join us in the park for climate-related crafting, including poster-making, chalk drawings, sunflower kits, and a drum circle hosted by Ollin.ca.

Overall, our Earth Day celebration is intended as a space where Kingstonians can meet not only to celebrate nature, but to reflect on and process our anxieties surrounding climate change, and together think through collective and creative ways that Kingston can continue to tackle the climate crisis at home. Ultimately, by making climate action accessible, fun, and community-oriented, we can strengthen the overall climate movement in Kingston and beyond.