Charlottesville Earth Week
Charlottesville Earth Week is an annual celebration of Earth Day held in Charlottesville and was officially affiliated with the Earth Day Network at least through 2008.
Charlottesville Earth Week was started by Bobbi Collyer, Lonnie Murray and Tatyanna Patten in Fall 2001 as a project by the NatureSpirit group at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church-UU as a celebration of Earth Day. It was originally listed with Earth Day Network during the planning phase for its first event. It debuted as GaiaFair, a small half-day eco-fair featuring no more than 12 environmental groups, held on April 20, 2002, in Lee Park near the Downtown Mall. Every year from 2002 forward, the Earth Week's coordinating team worked with other environmental organizations' efforts to increase environmental activism during the week of April 22 (the official date of Earth Day), effectively expanding Earth Week's calendar and programming from a half-day eco-fair to an eight-day series of events in addition to the eco-fair by 2004.
Since then, the festival has grown both in size and public interest to become a sponsored event of both the City of Charlottesville (in 2005), and the County of Albemarle (in 2006). Earth Week joined the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP), a non-profit company dedicated to helping grassroots organizers, in 2006, and VOP continues to be Earth Week's official fiscal agent.
In 2009, Earth Week's main eco-fair event, traditionally held in the City Parks system, moved to the Charlottesville Pavilion on the Downtown Mall. In 2010, the Earth Week Eco-fair was held on April 18, also at the Charlottesville Pavilion.