Spring Fling Kicks Off Today

This year's Spring Fling celebration will take place all day today and tomorrow, coinciding for the first time with Harvard's Earth Day activities.

Spring Flings are co-sponsored by the Undergraduate Council and the Environmental Action Committee (EAC) of Phillips Brooks House.

For starters, Harvard Dining Services will cater two barbecues today, one for lunch held near Memorial Hall and One held for dinner in the Radcliffe Quad.

According to Michael P. Berry, director of the Dining Services, a lunch of barbecued chicken breast sandwiches and salads will be served on frisbees, thus combining food with the idea of "adrenaline-pumping recreation."

In addition, tents for will be set up outside the Science Center, and activities will be going on from noon until dusk.

According to Bonnie J. Becker '95, co-organizer of the Earth Day celebration, the EAC will be selling t-shirts and running tie-dye and face-painting stands. The committee has also invited national, local and Harvard environmental groups to table. These groups will include Green-peace, the Sierra Club and Cultural Survival, a Cambridge group for indigenous rights.

Harvard groups will include the Harvard/Radcliffe College Democrats, the Republican Club, the Institute of Politics and the Migrant Farmworkers Association. Several EAC groups such as the Save James Bay Organization--who may be dressed up in caribou suits--will also be tabling, according to Becker.

The EAC will also set up a stage on which Harvard bands The Press, A.D. Woozlee and the Mogote Band will perform. The EAC will take the occasion to hold the Ecolympics final ceremony, announcing the overall winner of the energy-saving contest.

The Ben and Jerry's solar-powered ice-cream truck will also be present to distribute free ice-cream, according to Becker.

The council will be giving away mugs to promote reusable over disposable products. The event is intended to be as "waste-free and unconsumer as possible," Becker said.

An educational forum will take place between 2 and 4 p.m. in Sanders Theatre.

M. Uljana Mayer, the other co-organizer for the Earth Day celebration, estimated that between 1000 to 2000 Harvard students, not including prospective first-year students, will be present at the afternoon festivities.

Tree F. Loong '94, co-chair of the council's social committee, said the evening barbecue at the Quad will be held from 5 p.m. on, and that the council will show cartoons outdoors during the meal. Afterwards, the movies The Princess Bride and City Slickers will be shown.

Saturday's festivities coincide with the Caribbean Club carnival in the Quad, which will have vendors, a steel drum band, a stilt-walker and game booths. The council will run a Spring Fling shuttle bus from Lowell House courtyard and Johnston Gate.