Grassroots Green
Everything Old is Green Again
As part of the 2011 Great Lakes Folk Festival, the Michigan State University Museum will host a variety of tradition-bearers who carry on traditions that help restore, conserve and revitalize our planet.
Presentations, demonstrations and activities that feature individuals who engage in sustainable foodways, organic gardening, recycled arts and folk wisdom—will share information, ideas and activities that will help us consider the environment in the ways we live.
The Grassroots Green Program will feature an array of ways in which people are choosing the green life in several areas throughout the Great Lakes Folk Festival grounds:
MSU Student Organic Farm at the Folk Festival
Local and Sustainable Foods Area
This area will feature several different people and organizations involved in local and sustainable foods, including:
* independent organic farmers- Green Eagle Farm
* a local backyard chicken farmer
* Crosby Mint Farm – organic family farmers who recently saved their ancestral farm
Green Kitchen Stage
There will also be a food demonstration stage where we will host demos and talk sessions about:
* Putting food up through canning, fermentation, dried foods and jams and jellies
* vegan and raw food demos
* Soap making
*Yogurt and cheese making
*Kitchen cosmetics
*Keeping a root cellar
In addition, several participants will be selling organic produce, honey, and other organic food.
Re-Skilling Workshops
One-hour workshops designed for the audience to brush up on traditional – greener - lifeways.
Sessions will include:
*Finding and using herbs from an urban environment
*Spoon Carving
*Broom making
*Using a rain barrel to save water
*Keeping backyard chickens
*Thrift store shopping
*Crocheted bags from recycled materials
*Scrap quilting
*Keeping sheep and using their wool
*Darning socks
*Hanging out the laundry
*Green funerals and after-death care
The Reskilling Workshops Tent will also host the 2011 Michigan Heritage Awards Ceremony on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 14, at 3:00pm.
Green Arts Marketplace
Craftspeople making functional and beautiful art and objects from recycled materials will be featured in the Green Arts Marketplace, the first of its kind in the area. Here are a few examples of arts that will be shown and sold to our audience:
* bottlecap and button jewelry
* rag rugs and braided rugs
* handmade brooms
* pop top bags
* handmade lye soap
* recycled paper cake toppers and stationery
* decorative birds made from old tin containers
* crocheted bags from plastic bags
*recycled album covers
For more information on vendors, visit the Green Arts Marketplace page
Green Marketplace
Grassroots Green will also feature a marketplace of vendors who market “green” products for the home:
* solar lanterns
* home wind turbines
* solar ovens
* solar for home use
* composting toilets and garden composters
Green Groups
Non-profit and community groups who are working toward a sustainable planet will be present to share their activities. Student organizations, local environmental groups and representatives from the Big Greens will be on hand.
Green Kids Activities
* MSU Children’s Garden will be on hand to help kids plant salad crops to take home, grow and eat
* Creation Station volunteers will help kids make crafts from recycled materials
Funding Opportunities
Grassroots support can make a difference to the success of the 2011 Great Lakes Folk Festival! We welcome your organization's or company's support of the many different facets of the festival; whether it is in the form of technical support with logistics and materials, food services, advertising support, children's activities, or direct programming support that pays artists and tradition-bearers who are the main attraction of the festival.
For more information on Festival Sponsorship, click here
or contact one of the staff members listed below.
Contacts:
MSU Museum / Great Lakes Folk Festival Grassroots Green Program
Co-Curators:
Lynne Swanson (swansonl@msu.edu)
LuAnne Kozma (kozma@msu.edu)
Sponsorships:
Mike Secord, event manager (secordm@msu.edu)
