Earth Day Events

Community Centered Works is sponsoring Earth Day events on Saturday the 18th and Wednesday the 22nd. We will be planting seeds in recycled containers (egg cartons will be provided but anything will do!), passing out energy saving tips and constructing a raised bed garden. The events will take place in front of Community Physical Therapy and Wellness on 5th Ave in Gloversville from 10 to 12 on Saturday and 2 to 4 on Wednesday. Attendees can take their seed plantings home or leave them with us to be nurtured by Lisa and Emalee Albertin and other students in the Northville School greenhouse. When the weather is appropriate, the seedlings will be planted in community gardens throughout Gloversville. Some will remain in Northville to provide the students with food to eat or sell at the local farmers' market.

Please read on for more details. I placed this short piece on the Wilderness Society's Earth Day event page:

I am a vegetarian nutritionist and the only animal based food my husband and I eat are eggs. These are eggs from cage free, vegetarian fed hens that are locally raised; however, over the winter I was forced to buy Pete and Gerry's or Nellie's cage free organic eggs at our local Hannaford Supermarket as the local hens went on strike during the cold weather! The store bought eggs are sold in clear plastic containers. I am organizing an Earth Day event recycling those egg cartons as mini greenhouses for seedlings. The resulting plants will be planted in community gardens that two non-profit organizations are providing to help feed the public healthy organic vegetables. (I am project coordinator for one of those non-profits, Community Centered Works, the other organization is the First Presbyterian Church Community Garden) Eating locally grown food reduces our carbon footprint substantially and when people can just walk to their community garden or backyard plot, it reduces it further. Eating non-meat food also reduces your individual carbon footprint, as vegetables require much less water, land area per pound of nutrients and when they are grown organically they are not utilizing fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. Plus, plants take carbon dioxide out of the air and give back clean oxygen. I hope to keep expanding this project until there is no one in town who can't "afford" organic vegetables. Our growing season is short here so we are looking ahead to building a greenhouse heated by compost to extend our season in the Great Northeast!