The Planetary Society at Earth Day NYC

This April The Planetary Society’s volunteers took to the crowded streets of New York City to participate for the first time in the city’s enormous Earth Day celebration. A group of volunteers set up a booth with a simple mission: to educate New Yorkers about their place in space and grow membership in the world’s largest space advocacy team.

New York’s outreach coordinators and their team of volunteers immersed themselves in the crowds of tourists, locals, science buffs, and curious bystanders to hand out Planetary Society “swag” and copies of The Planetary Report. They brought infectious energy and enthusiasm to the table and sparked conversations about space, the future, and citizen involvement in exploration, engaging the public in the excitement of The Planetary Society.

And they saw results: the people of New York want to do more than just witness advances in space exploration, and many signed up as new members and volunteers. Adults and children alike were particularly drawn to the story of the Society’s citizen-funded LightSail spacecraft, a shining example of empowering the world’s citizens to advance space exploration. And of course, none could resist taking their photo alongside our backdrop of Bill Nye, our fearless leader and CEO.

The volunteers of New York City continue on their quest to educate in their community, building support for space, exploration and the work of The Planetary Society. These first efforts have been encouraging, revealing a discovery driven community with a hunger for science. In this global center for science, culture and progress we are bound to see more exciting Planetary Society events. Stay tuned.