Candlelit dinners with acoustic guitars are more than just sappy, cheap dates for college students; they are now welcomed in hopes of making a statement about energy and climate change nationwide.
To promote conservation, UCF’s Intellectual Decisions on Environmental Awareness Solutions, a proactive student non-profit organization, hosted “Do It In The Dark” - an event with a vegan potluck dinner lit by candlelight and tiki torches on Saturday at 8p.m. at a farm off of North Tanner Blvd.
The candlelight vigil, sponsored by CHEGG.com, an environmentally friendly textbook company, and Body of Animal Rights Campaigners, was in conjunction with 350.org, an international campaign dedicated to showing solidarity with cultures already feeling the effects of climate change, and to sending a message to United States Senators.
“We had acoustic music, had a bonfire, had a vegan potluck, and tried to make it a good time by being off of the power grid and not using any fossil fuels,” said Chris Castro, co-founder of I.D.E.A.S. “If everyone thought that way and did that once a week for several hours that would be catastrophic.”
By remaining off the power grid for five hours, I.D.E.A.S. saved 5 to 6 kilowatt hours, or about 5 to 10 percent of a households energy use for one day.
For the event, which took two weeks to plan, CHEGG.com donated $100, which provided the 20 tiki torches and thirty candles. BARC hosted the vegan potluck dinner and supplied dishes to feed a majority of the 100 guests who came out.
Anna Goldstein volunteer coordinator for North American actions at 350.org said that more than 3,000 candlelight vigils in more than 140 different countries were hosted simultaneously on the same night of the “Do It In The Dark” event.
“In Tampa there was a vigil in front of Senator Bill Nelson’s office, and there were many senators in the U.S. having vigils at their offices,” Goldstein said. “An important part of the vigils is to show that political will exists in the United States and that we are in solidarity with people across world. People in Michigan, Minnesota, Portland and Texas and across the world were in freezing rain, snow and wind chill and still standing out there to say this is important to us.”
Castro said it was an exciting step to host his vigil, which he named “Do It In The Dark” to attract students, because I.D.E.A.S. is usually locally involved, and this connects them to something much bigger.
“I think that students learned that you can have fun without needing sources of power that need fossil fuels,” Castro said. “That is going to be a major issue coming up in the green revolution. We need to be aware and conscious that we don’t need power to have fun.”
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