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Earth Day celebrated across the Coastal Bend

Posted at 9:46 PM, Apr 22, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-22 23:28:24-04

For the third straight year Monday, people gathered on the beach in Port Aransas and formed a human peace sign to mark Earth Day.

“We do it to celebrate Earth and this little piece of paradise where we live and to raise awareness for environmental issues that are a threat here on the Gulf Coast,” said Cara Denney, a volunteer for Port A For Peace, the group that organized the human peace sign.

People started arriving to the beach near the Horace Caldwell Pier around 5:00 p.m. They were all in formation a little over an hour later.

Students at Texas A&M Corpus Christi spent hours on Earth Day creating a circular chalk mural outside the campus dining hall. The location of the mural, which event organizers believe is the biggest in school history, was strategic.

“We can help reduce our carbon footprint by reducing the amount of food that we throw away,” Islander Dining Marketing Manager Amanda Hall said. “We want to teach [students] that one-third of all food made in the US and globally gets thrown away, and that’s enough to feed three billion people.”

Food waste wasn’t the only environmental issue written-out or illustrated on the chalk mural. Students wrote and drew a number of issues including climate change and pollution.

“We have things that just are people’s examples of why they celebrate Earth Day and how they give back,” said Grant Kendall, events programmer for Student Volunteer Connection, one of the groups involved in the mural’s creation.