Students, staff, and parent chaperones from BFA Fairfax participated in our annual Green Up Day activities last month.
Green Up Day is always the first Saturday in May and over 22,000 volunteers come together to remove litter from Vermont’s roadsides and public spaces. The day was launched in 1970, and since 1979 it has been officially organized by Green Up Vermont, a non-profit organization whose mission is “to promote the stewardship of our state’s natural landscape and waterways and the livability of our communities by raising public awareness about the benefits of a litter-free environment.” 
In Fairfax, Students were dispersed throughout the town of Fairfax to pick up rubbish that accumulated over the winter months. Middle school students spent time bonding with their Initiative Time groups and forayed deep into Fairfax armed only with garbage bags, rubber gloves, and a firm understanding of safety precautions! Elementary school students stayed closer to school, greening up the streets around the outskirts of the BFA-Fairfax campus. In addition, groups of students and staff cleaned up trash on the BFA Fairfax property itself — including the cross-country trails and recreation path — and weeded and mulched the flowerbeds surrounding the school building.
Thanks to BFA Fairfax educators Melinda Carpenter and Sandy Brown for making this opportunity happen for our community. Their time and efforts to coordinate this event are so greatly appreciated. Lindy and Sandy mapped individual groups’ Green Up routes, organized parent volunteers, provided maps to teachers and parents clarifying routes, and put together a safety guide for each group to follow while they were greening up our community.
There are numerous benefits to Green Up Day, including responsible and civic learning for our students. Green Up Day is both impactful and highly tangible, as the green garbage bags on the roadsides in our community are a highly visible reminder of the contributions students and parent volunteers made on this wonderful day!
The FWSU Story 