Maryville Pawprint Maryville Pawprint, Maryville University's Student Newspaper
Learn how to live healthier and greener—even in a dorm room! The annual Green Homes and Great Health Festival will be Sept. 29 at the Missouri Botanical Garden from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Presented by Ameren Missouri, the festival will welcome over 100 green product and service exhibitors who will help visitors explore ways to live sustainability—for healthier people and a healthier planet!
Photo courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden.
“All people live on this beautiful planet of natural and human built surroundings. The Garden is in place to protect, preserve, and conserve plants, and one of the greatest threats to the plants of the world are the humans,” commented Joyce Gorrell, sustainability projects coordinator at the EarthWays Center of Missouri Botanical Garden. “Therefore, everyone should feel some passion towards learning to live more sustainably and healthy in hope of improving not just their own health and surroundings but that our planet earth as well.”
The festival will also welcome Washington University physicians who will answer health-related questions and give free flu shots and health screenings. Everyone can shop the green marketplace, full of natural crafts and homemade healthy foods. There will be expert talks on home energy savings, backyard chickens and a variety of sustainable living options, as well as activities for children, including racing solar-powered cars, decorating recycled tiles, and helping paint an eco-themed Metro bus.
Gorrell said the goal of the festival is “to give each adult and child something to “take home” whether it’s an idea for their own home or lifestyle, the impetus to make larger changes – like riding their bike to work, a home good like handmade soap with more natural ingredients or a tasty snack made with fresher ingredients.”
If you’re not sold yet—there will also be a local food court and live music from local bands. So come learn all the ways that natural energy–plants, air, water, soil and the sun—help sustain our homes, our health and our planet; and learn how you can help yourself and your community.
For more details and information,
visit www.greenhomesSTL.org or www.mobot.org.
Missouri Botanical Garden:
4344 Shaw Boulevard
St. Louis, Mo. 63110
