Erica Black | Facility Rental Coordinator
Have you been to the annual Earth Fair here in La Crosse? Since 2009, it has helped foster an appreciation for and understanding of the natural world in our small community. With the help of many volunteers across numerous local organizations and individual citizens, the event comes to fruition the last Sunday of April in Myrick Park. The Nature Place partners with the La Crosse Earth Fair to offer its facilities, planning support, and programming.
The first La Crosse Earth Fair in 2007 was much different than it has become today. It began as a smaller, tabling type event downtown in Cameron Park, put on by the Environmental Studies students at UW-La Crosse. Soon after this Fair in 2007, a local non-profit, Coulee Partners for Sustainability (CPS) met with the UW-L group, and decided to officially take over the Fair, making it a bigger and more robust event for all. This first Earth Fair Committee, comprised of members from relevant local organizations and community activists, began planning the larger Earth Fair to take place at the end of April 2009. The chosen venue was the former Waldorf School (currently Partners in Excellence Autism Therapy Center on St. James and Caledonia Streets).
By 2011, the Earth Fair had outgrown the Waldorf School, and the Committee partnered with the City of La Crosse and the Myrick Hixon EcoPark to bring the Fair to Myrick Park that year. When the Myrick Hixon EcoPark dissolved in 2014, The Nature Place (then known under our umbrella organization’s name, WisCorps) took over their role as partners in the Fair to ensure that this significant community event remained in Myrick Park. Myrick Park continues to be a perfect fit for various activities, with the added use of the Main and Gun Club Shelters, a Children’s Tent in the lower parking lot, and a huge Vendor Tent set up across from the Main Shelter.
The Earth Fair continued under the umbrella of CPS until January of 2018, when CPS dissolved as an organization, and the Sustainability Institute (SI) took over the event as the fiduciary agent. With this switch, both the SI Executive Director and the Earth Fair Committee Chair (myself) work together with the rest of the Committee to put it on each spring.
What all occurs at the Earth Fair, you ask? SO MANY ACTIVITIES! Live raptor demonstration, children’s concerts, local food cooking demo, educational presentations, hands-on learning activities, crafts, games, seed planting, door prizes, Grand Green Prizes, book readings, live reptiles and insects, vendor booths, Green Goose Chase App scavenger hunt, live music, food vendors, the season’s first farmer’s & artisan’s market, local car vendors, baby farm animals, alternative energy demos, drum circle, and much more! WisCorps and The Nature Place offer reptile presentations in the Marshview Room, Crew Member information with tent pitching lessons outside, and nature crafts + activities both inside the building and in the Gun Club Shelter.
Don’t forget to stop down to the Fair this year in Myrick Park and The Nature Place from 11:00am to 4:00pm on Sunday, April 28, 2024! If you want more information, or are interested in volunteering for the Fair, visit www.EarthFairLaCrosse.com.