LOCH SHELDRAKE – Local high school and college students celebrated a belated Earth Day on Wednesday at SUNY Sullivan with live animals, nature walks, and the ability to speak with local businesses and environmentalists about sustainability efforts in the area.

The day was opened by SUNY Sullivan President Jay Quaintance and Larry Reeger, Director of Sustainability. They were joined in greeting the students by Christy TerBush of Sullivan Renaissance, and Taylor Jaffe and Eugene Thalmann of Catskill Mountainkeeper.

The students were split into two groups with the first group spending time with the farm animals outside in the courtyard, and the other group given the choice of an ecology walk on the woodland trail, or a sustainability tour of the geothermal, wind, and solar systems and Hope Farm.

Two local farms were present on campus, inviting students and faculty to pet, play with, and learn more about their animals. These included alpacas, which were brought by Buck Brook Alpacas of Roscoe, and various farm animals from BeaverWood Farm of Swan Lake, including geese, cows, and goats.

After about an hour, the two groups switched stations.

All the while, various organizations promoting sustainability were on hand. These included the Bashakill Area Association, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County, the National Park Service, SUNY Sullivan Admissions, Sullivan County Audubon Society, Sullivan Allies Leading Together, Sullivan County Division of Planning, Sullivan County Public Health, SUNY Sullivan Garden Club, Hope Farm, Friends of the Upper Delaware River, Morgan Outdoors, and the Watershed Agricultural Council.

Seventy-five percent of SUNY Sullivan’s campus runs on renewable energy from their solar panel field of over 7,000 panels, their geothermal heating and cooling, and wind power sources.

For the Earth Day Festival, students were given a Sustainable Development Goals Passport, which they could get stamped as they stopped by the many vendor tables. There were 17 total goals that they could get stamped for, and if they collected at least 12 stamps, they were entered into a raffle.

These goals take direct inspiration from the University Global Coalition’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“In early 2022 SUNY Sullivan committed to and joined the University Global Coalition. By joining the coalition we agreed to share and promote SUNY Sustainable Development Goals with all our students, staff and community,” said Reeger. “We were extremely happy with how the students and local vendors interacted with each other and discussed the Sustainable Development Goals.”