Spring Break
Fraternity hosts Earth Day event
Dray Miller, Daily Staff Writer
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In honor of Earth Day, the fraternity hosted what it called "Spring Fling" at Lowell Elementary School in downtown San Jose by throwing a barbecue and inviting local environmental groups to set up booths and spread information on their various causes.
Sporadic rain appeared to keep attendance down, but that didn't stop a large crowd of local residents and students of the school from partaking in the day's events.
Some of the groups on hand included Green Team of San Jose, the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley, Our City Forest, the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and representatives of the City of San Jose who were promoting anti-littering and anti-graffiti programs.
Neighbors and children floated from booth to booth, collecting fliers, pamphlets, toys and other gadgets from the environmental groups, as well as to and from the barbecue, where the fraternity was treating everyone to free food.
The fraternity's president, Chris Shaheen, said his group had been preparing the event for about a month and a half, during which time he called numerous environmental agencies, took fliers to the school's principal to pass out to students, and fraternity members passed out about 4,000 fliers throughout the neighborhood.
"We focus this event on the children of the school because that is who it is for," Shaheen said.
Amos Rendler was poised at the booth of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition passing out pamphlets promoting increased use of bicycles and instructions for bicycle safety.
He said events such as this one were some of the easier ways to get their message out.
"We try to cover any of the events in San Jose that we can," he said. "It's hard though cause there's only like 11 of us and we don't all live in San Jose."
Over at the Green Team booth, children played games with the representatives, such as a dice-trivia game in which the kids were asked various questions about recycling, before receiving fake tattoos that promoted recycling and conservation.
"We are multi-family recycling coordinators. Any place that has a dumpster, we go talk to the manager to make sure it's used properly," Green Team member Troy Evangelho said, adding that his group often does interactive presentations at apartment complexes to educate people on matters of recycling.
Lisa Annan Jensen, president of the University Neighborhood Coalition, said the event had been carried out in years past by her group, and the added help of the fraternity eased a lot of the pressure of putting it on.
"We had done this previously, and it's a lot of work to organize one of these," Jensen said. "I am so impressed with the work (Alpha Tau Omega) has done. They did a hell of a job."
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