For the first time, residents of Plant City have an opportunity to learn how to become more eco-friendly and celebrate the natural resources the world has to offer, right here in town, for Earth Day.
The Plant City Commons Community Garden is hosting Earth Day Fest, which is expected to become an annual event.
“We always do (an event) in the fall for Food Day, and we decided that we needed an additional fundraiser,” Karen Elizabeth, community garden director, said. “Earth Day seemed like a good fit.”
Throughout the day there will be free, half-hour workshops on a variety of topics to help attendees make their lives a little more eco-friendly.
Your Green Comfort Zone will be led by Cecilia Yocum, a licensed psychologist with more than 35 years as a mental health professional. The workshop will be an interactive experience, where participants will be asked to consider what extra steps they would be willing to take in order to be more earth-conscious.
“She’ll have some questions … for instance, where you are right now in being more green — maybe recycling, things of that nature — and then she’s going to put out some challenges,” Elizabeth said.
The next workshop, Simple Solar, will be a basic introduction to household solar power. Attendees will learn about ovens, lamps, battery chargers and other items that run on free energy from the sun. These items will not be for sale at Earth Day Fest, but there will be plenty of information available about how to find and purchase them.
Community gardener and master beekeeper Nancy Ham will lead a workshop called BEE Happy. She will discuss ways to help backyard bees with food and appropriate plants.
The last workshop will be an introduction to Time Banking, led by Marie Nelson of the Tampa Time Bank.
In the concept of time banking, people subscribe to the time bank and offer their skills to other subscribers. Whenever a subscriber serves another, he or she earns an equal amount of time in the bank, to be redeemed by a subscriber with another skill.
“It’s a time exchange and it’s all done evenly,” Elizabeth said. “Whether you’re a plumber or a yard worker, your time is all equal. Being earth-friendly also means helping each other out, as well.”
In addition to the workshops, there will be a marketplace of more than 27 vendors, offering everything from decorative gourds, to homemade fudge, to farm-fresh produce.
Representatives from Southwest Florida Water Management District will be present at Earth Day Fest. At their booth, visitors can pick up free yard work tools, efficient shower heads and other items for water conservation. The adjacent area will have activities for children, such as coloring books and a meet-and-greet with SWFWMD’s mascot, Officer Snook.
Earth Day Fest is a fundraiser for the Plant City Commons Community Garden. One of the garden’s goals is to install some rainwater harvesting equipment.
“We want to do several ways of harvesting water … so people can come by and say, ‘Well, I could do this at my house with a rain barrel,’” Elizabeth said. “It’s pretty simple to do, and it’s just nice to be able to walk up and see something like that.”
The garden also hopes to eventually add a butterfly garden and a youth entrepreneurship program, through which young people can grow produce and sell it at local markets. There would be an opportunity for scouts to earn badges through this program.
But it is equally important to the gardeners that Earth Day Fest is a fun way to teach members of the community about environmental issues and ways to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
“We can move away from some of the big agricultural issues like pesticides and land use … and people have that opportunity to understand that it’s easy to do, especially when you have folks like us to show you how to do it,” Elizabeth said.
IF YOU GO
Earth Day Fest
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 25
Where: Plant City Commons Community Garden, 309 N. Carey St., Plant City
Admission: Free
Workshops: Your Green Comfort Zone (11:30), Simple Solar (12:30), BEE Happy (1:30) and Time Banking (2:30)
Sponsorships: Contact Karen Elizabeth at 12circle8@gmail.com or (813) 435-8111.
Contact Catherine Sinclair at csinclair@plantcityobserver.com.