Our team works tirelessly to improve children’s lives through arts education, but they also volunteer their time and talents to furthering the missions of other amazing organizations. Follow our monthly #SuperStaff feature to learn more about the causes that our staff members give back to! While we’re sad that our time with Marketing & Communications Intern Danny Gonzalez has come to an end, we’re happy to share his volunteer experience at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival where he helped create space for arts and sustainability education with Global Inheritance.
By Marketing & Communications Intern Danny Gonzalez
As my first internship, I was a little nervous to tell the P.S. ARTS team that I was going to miss a day of work for a volunteer opportunity with another nonprofit that had invited me to the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Fortunately, P.S. ARTS encourages their team’s growth and involvement with outside organizations. My passion is ensuring that future generations are filled with brilliant artists and have a beautiful green planet to thrive on. So, when I found out that another nonprofit was using art as an innovative way to educate people about sustainability — I knew I had to get involved!
Global Inheritance is the sustainability partner of impactful events such as Coachella, Stagecoach, Beyond Wonderland, and UCLA’s JazzReggae Festival. At Coachella, they host a contest every year in which artists submit miniature recycling bins painted with unique design of their own artistic expression. Global Inheritance then chooses their favorites, requests a full-sized version, and gives the winners a free ticket to the festival! It’s a fun and engaging way of creating an intersection between sustainability and art that is accessible to a large population of young people. Another project Global Inheritance takes on is called “The Trashed Recycling Store” which trades bottles and cans found throughout the festival venue for great prizes including Ferris Wheel tickets, vintage Coachella T-shirts, and VIP upgrades! The store also has a great initiative that encourages festival-goers to trade-in 10 cans or bottles for an ice-cold water — in the 98-degree heat this can be a lifesaver! This year, Global Inheritance also installed large seesaws that visitors rode to generate enough energy to charge their phones; this gave participants a tangible understanding of the amount of effort required to power up a device they use daily.
I was proud to work with Global Inheritance because I they brought environmental education to a population that may not regularly be concerned with sustainability in a creative and accessible way. Not only did their efforts keep the venue clean, Global Inheritance provided a space for individuals to flex their creative minds and design beautiful works of art. Even with the blistering desert heat, rowdy crowds, and EDM overloads, I loved every minute of my time volunteering at Coachella!
To learn more about Global Inheritance, visit globalinheritance.org
