Items students received for volunteering
Students that signed up to volunteer during the first portion of the event received an Earth Festival shirt and water bottle.
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of T&CMedia's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
13 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Students that signed up to volunteer during the first portion of the event received an Earth Festival shirt and water bottle.
Members from Plan-it Earth, the Center for Community Engagement and the Otterbein Animal Conservation Club from Otterbein University hosted the Earth Festival on April 7 from 2pm to 6pm. The rough draft of the poster advertisement helps members to draw it out on a larger scale to eventually be displayed on campus.
If students did not register prior to the event, they could walk in the day of to register. Many people showed up the day of to register for the popular plarn making event.
When the ball of plan is made, it can continue to be added on to be as large as it can be and as long as someone is continuing to make the loops.
The first part of the event is volunteer work from 2pm to 4pm. Students could register to help pick up trash in Alum Creek Park, work at the Otterbein Community Garden, or the most popular option, make plarn in the Science Center. Freshman Jillian Stetter (left) assisted with sign and at the Otterbein Community Garden
After the plarn making event, all of the plarn was collected and taken to Church of Masters in Westerville. Volunteers from the church then use the balls of plarn to weave durable mats. The mats are then provided to the homeless so they have something to protect themselves from the surface they may be sitting or lying on.
Otterbein volunteers made about 25 of the plarn balls (above). This was an incredible event for the university as it worked to reduce the plastic bag waste on campus as well as provide a free service to those in need in the community. Volunteers were able to see their progress right in front of their eyes from the plarn sitting on the table at the end of the event. Half of the group did not know what plarn was before the event, so they were able to learn about something new and interesting that helps the Earth as well as people in the community.
The celebration included a visit from the Columbus Zoo, tables and stations from Plan-it Earth and Otterbein Animal Conservation Club to continue to spread awareness. There was also chicken, vegetarian and vegan food options for everyone that attended.
The first step to correctly making plarn is flatting plastic bags and folding them over twice. Once they’ve been folded and flattened, both ends are cut off of the bag, so a long rectangle is left
To make the long loops of plarn, volunteers cut the bag into large chunks until there is nothing left of the bag. Once there are the individual chunks, they can be unraveled to reveal long loops of the plastic bag.
What is plarn? Plarn is the term for the combination of plastic and yarn. Plastic bags are flattened and folded and cut into strips that are a tied together to make long loops of the plastic. Plarn is efficient because once the loops are tied together, they can be woven into durable bags or mats, as well as it minimizes the number of plastic bags as waste.