For the love of Valentine’s Day, the Wayne State College Green Team hosted the Plant Social on Tuesday, Feb. 10 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Kanter Student Center Atrium. This was a free event for WSC students looking for a festive activity to add life to their day after classes.
The Green Team President, Xavier Peardon, a current junior at WSC studying conservation biology, expressed both excitement and nervousness leading up to the Plant Social. Peardon said he loves the way the event has the ability to pair up people who may currently be alone for Valentine’s Day.
“The idea is that we give them one packet and they split it with someone else,” Peardon said. “People generally come to events like this together, but if not they’ll get paired up with a stranger.”
The Green Team has been planning this activity for months. While the club has hosted this event in the past, the current leadership is taking a plunge reinventing the activity, as it hasn’t been put on in the past few years. While the club expressed some worries about how they were going to pull it off, Peardon said he was confident in Green Team Vice President, Addie Stirek and her planning skills.
Stirek, a current junior at WSC majoring in fermentation science, did a fair share of the work organizing and planning the Valentine’s celebration. Peardon credits her with a large portion of the event’s success.
The Valentine’s Plant Social has become an effective way for the WSC Green Team to raise awareness for their club and environmental efforts. It also gives them a much more impactful opportunity to reach out to the campus community than they have seen in recent years. According to Peardon, this event was their largest of the academic year so far.
“Having it located in the middle of the Student Center, we expect a lot of foot-traffic,” Peardon said.
Stirek said they originally asked the college to set up a few tables, but then just recently realized they would need to accommodate a larger crowd with the new location of the event. She said she was glad they realized this a few days before the event because it wouldn’t have been as successful.
This prediction turned out to be right. As a whole, this year’s Valentine’s Day Plant Social was a success for the WSC Green Team.
In the official statement of the WSC Green Team, they define themselves as “a group of WSC students dedicated to making the college more environmentally friendly and the students more environmentally aware.”
Both Peardon and Stirek have said that this sentiment resonates with them, as they value the environmental concerns of the club.
“I’ve always been cognizant of my role on the planet, what I put into it and what I take from it,” Peardon said. “I initially joined because I wanted to learn better ways to do that.”
Stirek first joined the WSC Green Team after current Green Team President Peardon encouraged her to become a part of their efforts.
“In a science based major, we learn a lot about the earth and taking care of it,” Stirek said. “It’s an opportunity to do a little bit more contribute my share.”
The Green Team is open to all WSC students, as membership has no restrictions or requirements. Students who want to learn more about the environmental work and philosophies of the Wayne State College Green Team can visit their newly-made website at https://greenteamwsc.my.canva.site/.
