Michael and Judy Carman bought their tiny white Volkswagen on eBay. It gets 1,000 miles per gallon, you could cook your dinner in the gas tank and it cost them exactly zero cents to drive it from Lecompton to Wisconsin.

It runs on vegetable oil, and they call it the “veggie car.”

The veggie car and other examples of sustainable creativity were on display Sunday at the Little Green Festival at Burcham Park. The event was organized by Lawrence resident Alison Roepe, who hoped to generate conversation about sustainability in the city.

“This has heightened my awareness because now I know what other people are doing,” said Tom Borgardus, who added a hydrogen generator to his Ford pickup truck.

“It seems to get a few more miles per gallon,” he said.

Borgardus was one of an estimated 200 people and 34 vendors who attended the festival, which was hampered by rain but nonetheless created the kind of discussion and networking Roepe hoped for.

“It’s nice to have an event and get people talking,” she said. “That is very critical.”

Rich Wenzel of the Lawrence Sustainability Network said the green movement in Lawrence is part of a larger worldwide effort.

“More and more people are saying, ‘Hey, how can we change our lifestyle?'” he said. “It’s a phenomenon that’s not only happening in the U.S., but around the world.”

“It’s growing all over the country, and Lawrence is just a part of it,” said Steve Stemmerman, who staffed an information table with Wenzel. They said that the event helped them begin planning collaborative efforts with other like-minded groups in Lawrence, which will allow them to spread their message.

Stemmerman said the green movement has no target audience: “It’s anyone who wants to be involved.”

Roepe said she was inspired to conduct the event at Burcham Park because it is the proposed site of a boathouse for the Kansas University rowing team. Roepe said that the project would uproot 8,000 square feet of historic cottonwood trees, harming the environment, destabilizing the riverbank and ruining the view of the river.

“I don’t know if KU thinks very much of the conservation efforts,” Roepe said. But she conceded that the boathouse could make the area safer by adding more lighting.

“I just feel strongly about protecting the beauty we have here” in Lawrence, she said. “It saddens me that it seems not very important.”

The commitment of Lawrence’s green advocates surprised Corey Call, whose shaggy mohawk stood out in the crowd of mostly middle-aged men and women and children.

“I’m really impressed by the green event,” he said. “I didn’t realize there was so much interest in it. It’s growing, and we’re glad to be pushing that along.”