Earth Week Celebrated at Clean Up and Halton Eco Festival
Saturday, May 1st, 2010Oakville Community Centre
for Peace, Ecology and Human Rights (OCCPEHR)
P.O. Box 52007, Oakville, ON L6J 7N5
Tel/Fax: (905) 849-5501
E-mail: info@oakvillepeacecentre.org
Website: www.oakvillepeacecentre.org
EARTH WEEK CELEBRATED AT CLEAN UP
AND HALTON ECO FESTIVAL
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
We are very pleased to report that the two annual events we organize every Earth Week were very successful in reaching their goals.
Our 19th annual Earth Week Clean Up on Saturday, April 24th promoted awareness and respect for local nature, contributed to the protection of wildlife, and encouraged environmental activism in our community.
Our 10th annual Halton Eco Festival on the weekend of April 17 and 18 at the Glen Abbey Rec Centre succeeded in increasing environmental awareness and involvement through educational presentations and informational displays by environmentally-friendly businesses and organizations.
EARTH WEEK CLEAN UP
The sunny weather last weekend contributed to a fantastic attendance at our Clean Up. All figures are not yet in but we estimate that there were 1,500 volunteers cleaning up at thirty-nine nature sites throughout Oakville.
The amount of garbage picked up by the volunteers was astounding! A total of 5,000 kilograms was trucked away by Halton Region Waste Management that afternoon including 4,200 kilograms of garbage, 600 kilograms of metal waste and 200 kilograms from discarded tires.
There were forty-seven event coordinators who should be acknowledged for the great contribution they have made to their neighbourhood and to the Earth.
These coordinators and their nature site location included Earl and Sharon Weise (Hopedale Park), Scott Snowball (greenspace around the Petro-Canada Refinery), Brent McKnight and Richard Zavitz (Lakeshore Woods), Jennifer Graham (Bronte Bluffs Park), Laurence Hanly (Sedgewick Park), MPP Kevin Flynn (Coronation Park), Tracey Ehl (Woodhaven Park), Paul Musiol and the West River Residents Association (Hogs Back Park), Peter Neubauer and the Lakeside Residents Association (Lakeside Park), Sigrid Kajiwara (Deer Run Park), Paul Dankowich (Dunvegan Park), Susan Johnston (Brookmill Road Bridge), Britta Miles-Martini (Wedgewood Park), Laurie and Ken Mang, George Klouet of Remax and the Clearview Oakville Community Alliance (Clearview Park), Mike Lansdown and the Friends of Bronte Creek Park, Diane Burton and Oakvillegreen (Nottinghill Park), Patricia Bolton (Fourteen Mile Creek Lands), Antonio Fonseca (greenspace at Fourth Line and Upper Middle Road), Jane Wiggins (Aldercrest Park), Joe Di Paolo (Glen Oak Creek Trail at Monastery Drive), Carol Anderson (Trails at Sandpiper Road and Pheasant Lane), Donna Sheppard and the South Peel Naturalists’ Club (Indian Ridge Trail), Robert Patrick, and Holy Trinity environment club teacher Jenn McInnes-McNab (River Oaks Rec Centre), Patti Tutt (Shannon Creek Trail), Rob Mortensen (Riverbank Way), Rosemary Anstey and St. Simon’s Anglican (Litchfield Park), Renee and Andy Lehnen (Oakville Park), Doug Maybee (River Oaks Boulevard and Trafalgar Road), Lisa Orvidas (Glenashton Drive and Trafalgar Road), Sharon Brodner (16 Hollow Park), Pam Quesnel (Millbank Drive and Grand Ravine Drive), Trafalgar Presbyterian (Glenashton Drive Bridge), Councillor Tom Adams (Algrove Park), Ann Gray (Falgarwood Pool), Brad and Nikki Jandrew (Pondview Place), Mike Tanner (Ravineview Way), Warren and Nancy Edgar and family (Sheridan Valley Park), Berva MacDonald (Iroquois Shoreline Woods), and environmental club teacher James Oak and students at Iroquois Ridge high school (Golden Meadow Park).
Twelve schools sponsored the Earth Week Clean Up and more than 2,500 students in total participated during the week of April 19 to April 23. These schools and their coordinators included Wendy Wehrli at Chisholm, Principal Marlow at Maple Grove, Principal Houston at Montclair, Sandra McCoy at Munns, Lisa Orvidas at Post’s Corners, Gord Ferguson at River Oaks, Iroquois Ridge high school, Holy Trinity secondary, Judy Bianchi at Our Lady of Peace, Anne Ker at St. Joseph, Principal Gord Phippen at Dearcroft/Westwind Montessori, and Principal Sandrine Lescure at Trafalgar Ridge Montessori school.
The Earth Week Clean Up was sponsored by a total of ninety-three local organizations who collectively donated more than $5,000 towards the success of the event. The Town of Oakville donated bags and gloves and Pitch-In Canada also donated bags. Earth Day Canada, of which we have been the local sponsor since 1996, provided posters and other resource materials for our Clean Up.
HALTON ECO FESTIVAL
The positive energy was pulsating strongly at the Glen Abbey Rec Centre during our 10th annual Halton Eco Festival!
The community was invited to access the seventy-five booths staffed by exhibitors and sponsors who are very knowledgeable and extremely dedicated to the natural environment and around 2,000 people were in attendance at the two-day event.
There were so many features at the event that it is hard to recount them all however some of them included the interactive kid’s eco fun zone hosted by Trafalgar Ridge Montessori, the silent auction with sixty gifts to bid on, musical artists performing for the first-time ever at the event (SINVA, and The Nirananda Pure Joy Band), the live birds of prey shown off by sponsor Conservation Halton at a workshop on Saturday, the 400 blue boxes handed out for free by sponsor Halton Region which also promoted its upcoming rain barrel sales, a “clothesline competition” staged by Green Pole Solutions, the Town of Oakville which sponsored the event and promoted the many initiatives of its Environmental Policy Department, the fun “Eco Jeopardy” game we created and is now organized by students with the Peace and Social Justice Club at St. Thomas Aquinas secondary school, the many health and wellness exhibitors, the activist organizations promoting dozens of critically important campaigns, the organic cotton t-shirts printed by sponsor Rafa Importers and given as a gift to all of the sponsors and exhibitors as well as being worn by the 75 volunteers (who did a great job and contributed more than 700 volunteer hours of time), and perhaps the best food ever served at a Halton Eco Festival by sponsor Sky Dragon who prepared an all-vegan, non-gluten based menu that was enjoyed by many.
As well, there were sponsors from the non-profit sector including the Halton Environmental Network, Oakvillegreen, the Burlington Re-Use Centre, and Habitat for Humanity (Halton) who highlighted their many contributions to the community and promoted their respective campaigns for solar energy, tree initiatives, and the 3 R’s of reduce-reuse-recycle.
Great efforts were made to have a waste-free event and Barbara Frensch of Burlingtongreen coordinated this very important aspect of the event. Sixteen green carts, nine blue boxes, and an on-site cardboard dumpster were filled while only three bags of garbage were sent to the landfill from all of the activity generated at the Halton Eco Festival.
Many politicians were in attendance including Mayor Robert Burton of Oakville, Halton Region Chairperson Gary Carr, Oakville MP Terrence Young, and Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn. Also, all four major political parties had booths and answered people’s questions about their environmental policies.
The door prize winner of a gift basket donated by exhibitor Arbonne International was Anna Larson of Oakville. Terrence Chow of Oakville was the winner of a gift basket donated by Trafalgar Ridge Montessori for those participating in the Treasure Hunt.
Of greatest importance, the Halton Eco Festival promoted the theme of “sustainability and sustainable living” for Halton Region. People discovered how to improve the environment, their health and our community and we learned that there are solutions for environmental problems.
Ultimately, the Halton Eco Festival is about hope for the future, optimism, and the belief that we can build a more sustainable community here in Halton Region and we are so pleased that so many others agree!
We look forward to organizing the Halton Eco Festival for many more years to come. We will continue working as hard as we can to involve ever more people and organizations (business, government, not-for-profit) in realizing our common goal of living more sustainably in Halton Region.
For sustainability in Halton Region,
Stephen Dankowich, Executive Director,
Oakville Community Centre for Peace, Ecology and Human Rights (OCCPEHR)
(905) 849-5501, P.O. Box 52007, Oakville L6J 7N5, www.oakvillepeacecentre.org
