It's April, so all month long there tend to be various Earth Day and related ecologically beneficial events. I'm on my Maryland end at the moment, so I carved out some time to be certain to make it to GreenFest, my county's 'big' Earth Day event. I appreciate the fact that it isn't held on Earth Day itself, which lets me explore other events later on in the month.
I'm going to link a number of programs below in that these are part of my landscape/community resources where I live and Greenfest then becomes a really wonderful chance to bring them all together for the annual event. So dig around on these links, there's a LOT of inspiration there.
GreenFest being an event sponsored by the county itself, it's held at the local community college campus in Columbia. While it's a bit too far for us to bike to, (and getting trees and plants, etc. home on) they do offer a bike corral and encourage green transit, including local bus routes. For Columbia residents, It's at least public transit accessible.
As you can see on the GreenFest link, throughout the event there are a number of workshops offered including one presented by SUN, the solar co-operative we've worked with in the past that started here in the DC area.
There are a number of free give-aways from the county, some of which have to be registered for in advance, but you can get a rain barrel or a compost or bokashi bin, for example.
Often there will be 'how to' workshops as well, though this year the county's 'green bin' food scrap collection and composting program had a booth out with the native plant vendors and food trucks.
The give aways are part of the county's commitment to reducing landfill use, and encouraging rain water collection at the home scale.
The biggest give away over the event requires preregistration, but offers native trees and shrubs through the "Trees for Bees" program/Bee City Howard County and come with stakes and protective cages. This is both in support of our pollinators and as part of the county's efforts to increase tree canopy and reduce heat island effects years from now. We chose a Linden and a Sweet Gum this year. Wisely, they hold the tree give away in a separate parking lot. They also divert the drive up shredding event there as well, so as to to not overwhelm the main space.
Transition Howard County runs a repair cafe over the event that residents can sign up for in advance, and the county runs a paper shred event as part of their ongoing series of shredding and recycling efforts.
The county's Roving Radish truck was there as well. It's a fantastic program connecting HoCo farmers with county residents, particularly those in need or food insecure with solid healthy eating options that come to them.
Here in HoCo, about 1 in 6 residents experience food insecurity. Which is part of why connecting local growers with folks is really critical work. The county is trying to subsidize both the growers and those who use the services as part of supporting what farms we have left and as a way of getting good local food to those who need it.
Importantly, food and personal items are also collected for the campus food pantry. (Me, I look at the campus landscape and contemplate food forest possibilities like Hyattsville, Maryland is already growing.)
Outside the building where the workshops are held, part of the parking lot is taken over by HoCo native plant nurseries and tents for some of the local community group sponsors of the event.
This year, there were 7 local nurseries, including (nonprofit) Howard EcoWorks. They worked with the Trees for Bees program and another local nursery to put together a pilot program set of prefab "pollinator kit" plugs with a planting design plan for homeowners to explore the idea of using their organizational resources to create replicatable kits for various site conditions at a discounted rate.
I had seen the information about trialing the color coded kits beforehand. We were fortunate enough to get the very last one they had available today. I brought it home, and started marking out the intended site, forking the ground and sheet mulching in preparation to plant it out. (Maybe that's another post.)
Once it's all planted in, they urge you register your pollinator planting to add it to the county's 138 acres of registered pollinator habitat. You can even stop by the local Robinson Nature Center, hike a trail, visit their resident box turtle, and then pick up a free Howard County Trees for Bees pollinator garden yard sign.
I put this little post together in that it's not just the planting kits that are replicatable. Lots of the different programs linked above can serve as inspiration to building something appropriate to wherever you live. There are people growing food and needing food, 'wastes' that can be diverted, water that can be collected, and education that can be done everywhere.
Lots of places won't get government support for doing so (although showing your locals what diverting 'waste' streams can mean and how ultimately that can be very cost effective is sometimes possible.) But that doesn't mean these sorts of work can't be done.
We can connect hungry people with locally grown goodness, transform 'lawns' into food, teach about basic composting techniques, hold a repair cafe or form a solar co-op, or plant out and give away native plantings anywhere.
Weaving community resources each having taken hold of their own piece of the work together, they begin to form a net, a safety net, that can be greater than the sum of their parts.
HoCo isn't an ecotopia, but it has done some real analysis about the costs connected with NOT moving in these directions, as well as looking at climate changes and what can be done now to mitigate perhaps at least some damages later. It's laid out a set of environmental planning programs and a gateway for residents, Live Green Howard, that aims to make these efforts understandable and approachable.
There are models here others may find inspirational and useful to your own work.
