Among the many springtime festivals that will be showcased throughout Tampa Bay this year, one stands on a 18 year history, setting the standard for others to live up to. This festival is EcoFest, put on by Learning Gate Community School, a local environmental charter school located in Lutz, Fl.
Learning Gate Community School is an environmental charter school established in 1983 and is often ranked within the top 30% of all public schools in Florida. “The mission of Learning Gate Community School is to foster environmental stewardship through a curriculum that pairs classroom lessons with hands-on learning experiences.” The founder, Patti Girard, started this community school in Lutz, Florida with the promise that the students and teachers would put sustainability and environmental awareness at the forefront of its educational practices. Eighteen years ago, Learning Gate Community School decided to embark on something that few schools attempt, a festival that would be different from others that may have come before. This new festival, coined EcoFest, would dedicate itself to teaching these environmental principles.
The Sustainable Living show sat with Heidi Hughes, 6th grade Environmental Education Teacher and Assistant Principal, Dr. Carlos Jordan, to discuss the upcoming EcoFest, 2025. Dr. Jordan says, “EcoFest is an opportunity for the community to get together and celebrate sustainability and environmental awareness, and to celebrate and partner with the many environmentally friendly businesses, organizations, and individuals in the Tampa Bay area.” With a focus of teaching the principles of sustainability, green living and eco-friendly innovation, EcoFest includes demonstrations, informational booths, green living products and services. Dr Carlos Jordan also touts it as “an opportunity for people all over the Tampa Bay area to come out and learn more about not only environmental awareness and sustainability practices, but also get in touch with other people in the community that are of the same mind, with a focus on vendors who value sustainability, who want to contribute to a sustainable world.”
Heidi has been to almost every Ecofest since the beginning. She has spent fifteen of the last twenty years teaching at Learning Gate Community School and has recently taken on the role of leading the “Green Team.” The group focuses on educating students on sustainability and environmental issues and solving problems within the Learning Gate community and beyond. Heidi explained that last year, the student led group successfully petitioned the school to replace styrofoam lunch trays with compostable ones—on the condition that the Green Team would handle composting them. The group’s enterprise was successful and the school is now composting 900 trays weekly, and Heidi boasts that festival trays will be composted too.
“Bringing back its roots,” will be the focus of this year’s festival, Carlos Jordan said, “because after years of holding the festival at different locations throughout Tampa Bay, Eco Fest: Bringing it Back to its Roots will be held at the Schools Hanna Campus once again.” Heidi says she feels one of the reasons why the festival is being brought back to the Hanna Campus is that “we have the ability to showcase some of the sustainability and environmental programs that we are doing on this campus. When EcoFest is in another location, we can’t really show the public all the great things that are happening here.” Some examples of those programs include taking care of all the composting of food waste, and the recycling programs at the school, as well as the many organic gardens. “This is an opportunity to get the public around the campus.”
Eco Fest takes place Saturday, April 26th from 9am to 3pm at Learning Gate Community School, 16215 Hanna Road, Lutz, Florida. The event will be open to the public from 9am until 3pm.
Jordan clarifies that ‘Back to it roots”, means coming back to the Hanna campus, and reminds everyone that Learning Gate was one of first charter schools in the state and nation to be an environmentally focused public charter school. Having just received a fifteen-year charter renewal after celebrating twenty five years of excellence, we can be sure that Learning Gate will be around for years to come as a bastion of earth friendly education.
For additional information on EcoFest 2024, please email ecofest@learninggate.org or call 813-948-4190, ext 313
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