The Georgetown University Earth Week Collaborative, a group organizing on-campus events to celebrate the environment, hosted their third annual Earth Week from April 21 to April 28.

The Earth Week Collaborative aims to highlight sustainability and environmental issues both on and off campus, including through raising money for the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, a D.C.-based organization dedicated to protecting the right to clean water. The Georgetown Earth Commons, the center for environmental education on campus, and the Office of Sustainability recently awarded the Earth Week Collaborative with the Green Commons Award, a financial grant that recognizes and supports initiatives for environmental change. 

Charvee Dua (CAS ’25), a co-chair of the Earth Week Collaborative, said the group’s main goal is to bring together organizations that may not be explicitly connected to environmental issues. 

“We did an event with Students for Justice in Palestine this year and we’re also doing a climate policy panel with the Georgetown College Democrats — things that aren’t necessarily inherently environmental. We’re getting more students on campus to think about sustainability and just celebrate the week,” Dua told The Hoya.

Cate Ledoux (CAS ’25), the other co-chair, said that the celebration provides opportunities for students to get involved without committing to joining a specific club. 

Full disclosure: Cate Ledoux formerly served as an assistant copy editor for The Hoya.

“There are so many people who are environmentally-minded or care about the environment without necessarily being part of one of the tentpole environmental clubs, so I feel like this week is really for everyone to join in on,” Ledoux told The Hoya.

Organizations participating included Georgetown Bubble, which sells bubble tea at campus events; The Corp, a student-run non-profit; Georgetown University College Democrats (GUCD) and the Georgetown Radio Station, WGTB.

Dua added that she is particularly excited about the benefit concert on Copley Lawn on April 28, hosted by WGTB, to end the celebration, as she hopes it will draw in a wider variety of people and increase the Collaborative’s visibility.

“We’re hoping that people will just be walking by and listen to the music and want to come sit down for a bit. I think it’ll be a fun celebration at the end of the week to finish things off,” Dua said.

Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network (GREEN) also aided in planning Earth Week events. 

Jack Hoeffler (CAS ’25), co-president of GREEN, said that he hopes GREEN will be able to continue connecting Georgetown students with similar interests through events like Earth Week.

“There are really great environmental opportunities all across campus and often we have people show up and say ‘I’m really interested in environmentalism but I don’t know what to do,’ and we have so many things we can recommend,” Hoeffler told The Hoya. 

Hoeffler added that GREEN’s size means it has more funding than other student environmental groups, which he hopes will help support additional opportunities.

“We’re a large club with a lot of funding, and we can provide that pretty generally. We’re a welcoming club, and we can use our fund to help encourage people to join other environmental clubs that have more specific agendas.” 

Dua said that the financial aid from the Earth Commons Award has been a major help for the Collaborative expanding the group’s mission and planning events throughout the week.

“Having that source of funding, since we aren’t technically a student organization through the CSE, and people to support our mission has been really helpful and has helped us to do some of these bigger events.”

Dua added that she hopes the Collaborative will grow and improve the celebration in the future, becoming more self-sufficient in coming years and hosting more of their own signature events.

“We’re constantly thinking of new ideas about what could work, and especially now that we have some funding, it’s easier for us to implement those and not necessarily have to put those onto another club,” Dua said. “So while we are excited for tons of collaborations, we’re also excited to have some more bandwidth to do these exciting events we’ve been dreaming of for a long time.”