You've probably noticed I haven't posted many sewing projects the last few weeks, only the Pom Pom Blog Hop stuff from April 24. The reason is, it's Earth season. For me it's not day or month it's a season, my busiest time of the year as the Environmental Education Coordinator in our city. Our city is 141,000+ in population... Not everyone is green yet but I am working on it! Lol.
In the last several weeks, I have been hosting event after event, presenting to schools, scouts and church groups and just plain going bananas! The BIG events include the following.
After returning from the Texas Water Conference in Galveston back on the 11th, on April 13th -- I hosted our Texas Trash Off event. We had about 600 volunteers pick up litter all over the city. our city does not have a litter problem BUT if you look hard....you will find some! This was more than double the volunteers as any previous year so on one hand very overwhelmed (big gulp) and on the other hand doing back flips because it was so many residents were interested.
April 18th I hosted a gardening seminar for 50 residents, teaching residents about drought tolerant and native landscaping. This was really successful.
On April 20th, I helped host the Beautification Day at my daughter's school with the PTA and people from our local Kohl's department store. About 25 volunteers helped spread 10 cubic yards of mulch and compost to 62 trees and plant 240 drought tolerant flowers in the landscape to beautify the school campus. Here is Micaela in a wheelbarrow.
April 21st was Micaela's 8th birthday. We had a small celebration with family and will celebrate in May when we have a free weekend with her little friends. Here's a quick family snapshot right before she blew out the candles. We can't believe she is 8 already!
April 22nd was the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day.
This marked my 15th year working in Environmental Stewardship, 10 years at BAG Corp in Dallas and 5 years at the City of McKinney. I feel very fortunate to be doing the type of work that makes a difference.
April 25th, I hosted a big Rain Barrel Building Workshop. I love rain barrels, this class is always popular.
Yesterday, April 27th, I hosted our Drug Take Back Event in partnership with our County Sheriff's Department and Police Department. OMG, this was my first time to host this event and it was a HUGE success. We collected more than 600 lbs of medicine and more than 25 large garbage bags of medicine packaging for recycling. We had more than 150 cars in a four our time span, that's a car every 90 seconds. Here I am with the officers that helped me. You can see all of the bags! I am so thankful this stuff is not in the landfill or the watershed.
At this point, I am over the hump. I have a few more big city wide events to go, a few more presentations at schools and that will be IT because the calls from schools and groups will slow down and my focus will change to promoting water conservation during the summer months as our area of North Texas is in a drought.
So there you have it, that's why I haven't sewn much lately. I hope this post didn't bore you to much. Hopefully something I posted in my list above will inspire you to do something to save the earth where you live if you are not doing it already. Thanks again for reading this far.
The book profiles Fancy Nancy and her best friend Bree as they set out to explore the fascinating world of wildflowers, trees, leaves, birds and butterflies. There are recipes for making a pinecone birdfeeder and extra fancy lemonade. I can't wait to read this to Micaela, I just know she is going to love it, it's just so perfect for Earth Day!
