Wipeout Crew brings Earthfest back to the Kaiser Campus

For the past decade, Kaiser High School Students have organized and run an annual Earth Fest; aligning with Earth Day to promote sustainability in our community through a vibrant spring festival. This year promises to be no less exciting. 

“Earthfest is a school and community event, in which we bring together nonprofits, farms, food, local businesses and artists to celebrate all of the wonderful things being done in the area of conservation and environmentalism.” says Paul Dela Balazs, Kaiser High School teacher and advisor of the Wipeout Crew. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of this event; whose importance to this school and our community is most successfully conveyed through its continuance through the years. Earthfest was started by the students of the Wipeout Crew in 2015 in connection to Earth Day, and it has been organized every subsequent year since then. 

“I think that Earthfest has done an amazing job at uniting our community, which I think makes Wipeout’s message that much more powerful and influential,” says Sabrina Pallango, an officer of the Wipeout Crew. 

“Earthfest was created initially by the Wipeout Crew and has always been led by the Wipeout Crew.” explained Balazs. “Their mission was to bring to our school campus all that celebrating the Earth means, in a festival.” The passion of Kaiser students has fueled this festival for the past 10 years. Pallango said, “I originally wanted to get involved with Earthfest because I’ve seen it succeed in the past and wanted to help make it successful again.” Earthfest started out as a schoolwide event, but expanded to include local vendors, artists, and educators in 2018. Balazs emphasised the important role that each contributor has played throughout the years. “Everyone that’s been a part of it has contributed a lot to creating the foundation for it. Every year gets to pick up last year’s plan and just grow it.” 

This year, the theme of Earth Day is Our Power, Our Planet. Accordingly, the festival will focus directly on using renewable energy sources, demonstrating the ways in which we can rely on more sustainable solutions. Balazs believes in the role of communities in emphasizing this year’s theme. “The festival is really geared to spreading awareness about the things that the community is doing to contribute to the protection of the Earth,” he explained. “This year the focus has been to ensure that those that are in power around the world can begin to see that communities are already making the shifts [to sustainable energy].” Pallango added, “I think the most important thing for visitors to take away is a greater respect for the Earth, and a realization that every individual has an impact on our environment, whether it be negative or positive.”

Pallango believes that Earthfest is one of Wipeout Crew’s “biggest projects.” “I am most excited about seeing the turnout and seeing all of our hard work pay off to make this year’s Earthfest just as amazing as the previous ones!” Earthfest has certainly been a huge success, and looking back on the past 10 years, Balazs affirms that he has no regrets. “Everything we’ve done has been really calculated and intentional. /…/ Not everything works out perfectly, but with the kind of love and grace that we have to go into it, we’re all just there to learn and be together, and every year we look forward to that.”