The Eco-PAX Club hosted 25 students who shared “stone soup.”
Stone Soup is an event that promotes a strong sense of community and fellowship. Each person who attends the event brings an ingredient, and the various offerings are thrown into a pot. The participants enjoy the resulting soup.“At the beginning we had some lofty goals of actually making the soup in a large cauldron, which we did attempt, but we just took it into the kitchen—and now we carry on with that tradition,” Joanna Epp, a junior, said.
Eco-PAX is a student-led group–the leaders for the 2014-15 year are Epp; Anna Costanza, a senior; Cecilia Lapp-Stoltsfuz, a sophomore; and Kayla Gray, a sophomore. The club holds various events throughout the year and welcomes every Goshen College student to attend the events.
In previous years, Eco-PAX has held bread baking events at Merry Lea, bonfires and events where participants make ice cream or apple cider. The group also watches environmental documentaries and holds discussions about sustainability and creation care.
On the Eco-PAX Facebook page, the group is defined as “a club promoting ecological awareness, action, education and living, by forming connections on campus and in the larger community.”
This year at Stone Soup, many Goshen College students brought ingredients found while dumpster diving, finding good food thrown into dumpsters by stores or restaurants, which embraces Eco-PAX’s focus on the environment through lowering food waste and supporting sustainability.
Stone Soup was started two years ago and was based on a children’s book.
“Other people should organize something like this,” Epp said. “It just brings people together.”
The next Eco-PAX event, a Christmas and study party, complete with tea and cookies, will be held Dec. 10, from 7-9 p.m. There will also be recycled materials provided to make Christmas cards and ornaments.
