Taking Part in the Environmental Action Day
Last Saturday, I, along with nearly 700 other people, attended a really fascinating event in my hometown of Bedford, New York. It was the Environmental Action Day held at Fox Lane High School, organized by Bedford 2020. The group was actually formed in 2009 and this was their first major event, rallying residents to get involved in the town’s efforts to preserve natural resources. Throughout this daylong program, there were many educational speeches, workshops, and demonstrations from local businesses and personalities. After this successful pilot program in Bedford, Environmental Action Day has plans to introduce themselves to other communities in Northern Westchester County. Events such as this one are so very important for educating the public about a better and attainable way of improving their lives, ultimately improving the environment.
1 Here I am at Bedford 2020 Environmental Action Day with a giveaway of a reusable grocery bag.
2 Approximately 700 people attended Environmental Action Day held at fox Lane High School in Bedford, NY.
3 There were several informed and articulate speakers, including Daniel Martin, Founder of Conversations -for-Action, who echoed themes of a community called to action.
4 Attendees were happy to learn from experts about the future of energy.
5 This station educated about the efficiency of solar water heaters for the home, comparing them to standard water heaters.
6 There was really good information about energy efficient appliances.
7 There was a workshop about fracking, a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling, which could possibly alter the quality of our drinking water.
8 Riverkeeper safeguards the ecological integrity of the Hudson River, its tributaries, and the watershed of New York City by tracking down and stopping polluters.
9 You may recall a blog I posted about Daisy Hill Farm, which is owned and operated by Gwenn Brant (in blue).
10 Gwenn prepares many food products from ingredients grown on her farm, including pickled beet balls, marinara sauce, apple butter, and blackberry preserves.
11 Bedford Bee works hard to educate about the importance of honeybees to our food system.
12 Here I am with D.J. Haverkamp of Bedford Bee, who is also a honeybee service provider.
13 This map indicates that there are approximately 25 farmers' markets in the surrounding Bedford area.
14 I also posted a blog about Table Local Market, a wonderful food establishment that has a mission to sell artisanal quality goods from the regional area.
15 Mill River Supply Lawn and Garden Store are suppliers of organic and eco-friendly products, including Quantum Growth, a biological growth enhancer.
16 Bedford Audubon offered a lot of information about birds found in the area.
17 Their mission is to promote conservation and protection of wildlife habitats in the Northern Westchester and Eastern Putnam region through education, advocacy, nature study, and bird watching.
18 Adam Zorn, Naturalist at the Westmorland Sanctuary - a 640 acre sanctuary in Westchester County dedicated to educating the public about ecology
19 There were all sorts of energy-saving devices on display from light bulbs to shower heads.
20 An excellent display about how groundwater becomes contaminated
21 Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center is a working crop farm and environmental educational center located in Yorktown Heights, NY.
22 The mission of The Native Plant Center is to educate the community about the environmental necessity, economic value, and natural beauty of native plants in the Northeast.
23 Posing with my friends from Cornell Cooperative Extension Westchester County - Contact the extension in your area for top-notch information, often unavailable elsewhere.
24 Here I am with Carola Bracco - Executive Director of Neighbors Link - an organization that works to meet the needs of Latino immigrants in Mount Kisco.
25 I also blogged about Bennies Feed Barn - This is Michael Jusko, aka Bennie.
26 The Mount Kisco Child Care Center is a wonderful teaching facility that has a strong focus on healthy eating and nutrition education, called Feed Me Fresh - From Garden to Table.
27 Running Duck Farm offers many varieties of heritage breed chickens, ducks, and turkeys
28 Running Duck Farm's, Clara Zander - Speaker/Panalist - was offering gorgeous fresh eggs.
29 Winter Share of Winter Sun Farms provides great tasting frozen and fresh fruits and vegetables all winter long, provided by local sustainable farms.
30 Dan Swim, from SavAtree - my arborists - were there promoting the importance of keeping your trees pruned and healthy. Trees are great for the environment!
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
It would be good if more towns, and communities could, or would, get together like this.
Gloria G!!
Posted by: Gloria | February 2nd, 2011 at 12:32 am
Martha, very informative and thanks for sharing this blog.
Posted by: KLBrown | February 2nd, 2011 at 2:26 am
I love this Martha!
Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: FunkySteph | February 2nd, 2011 at 8:41 am
I am unable to believe my EYES. A workshop on Fracking underground formations!! Dakota continues to seek a better and attainable way of improving our lives, ultimately improving the environment while providing employment and economic development. Tell Me MORE.
Posted by: ann | February 2nd, 2011 at 10:28 am
Hi Martha, Thanks for another terrific, fascinating, inspiring, intellectual blog that shows great ideas about how to protect our world! You sure must have had a wonderful time touring that superb event and how great that so many of the participants were people that you have blogged about before! So many of the subjects shown here are certainly not new to you because you always do everything you can to protect our environment and keep all of us very healthy. I love these great photos and you and everyone else look very happy to be at that event. So glad you will be on Sirius Radio 112 today on 'Ask Martha'. Have a great day and stay warm! Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | February 2nd, 2011 at 11:22 am
Thank you Martha for taking time to come to this important event and sharing what you learned. Bedford is doing so much to galvanize the community to be more sustainable, check out the website: http://www.bedford2020.org
Posted by: Leslie Needham | February 2nd, 2011 at 11:41 am
Thank you for the post and for taking such a strong stand on enviromental issues. Would you have David Kirby on "The Martha Show?" I don't think enough can be said about factory farming and how it's effecting the world we live in.
Posted by: julia | February 2nd, 2011 at 11:43 am
Martha, I catch your show on Hallmark almost every other day and I was so impressed when I heard you say that you raise bees! My father raises bees, and raising bees helps create advantages for our environment. It would be great if on one of your shows, you talk about bee-keeping so everyone can be informed!
Posted by: Sarah W. | February 2nd, 2011 at 11:48 am
Hi Martha,
I find it commendable that no matter how busy you always are, you still find time to participate in community affairs on the weekends. Communities become close-knit when they do things together which I think is a good thing. We have about 700 houses in our housing development and I would be willing to bet if someone started a thing such as Environmental Day, no one would attend unless a barbecue was offered!
~
I miss not living in a smaller community like the one I was raised in. Bedford is a lot bigger than where I went to school but people participated in events and helped one another and it was great. I love that the Mount Kisco Child Care Center is teaching the children about eating healthy and nutritionally. You can’t start soon enough with that! How great also that there are 25 Farmer’s Market in the surrounding Bedford area. We have a Green Market in town on the weekends I think and an indoor ‘farmer’s market that is so packed with cars I never want to go there. Everyone of Bedford should be very proud of their community, which I’m sure they are! Thanks for sharing this most interesting event with us. Trish
Posted by: Trish @ Trish_EllenC | February 2nd, 2011 at 11:55 am
I love events such as these...i would say that Bedford and surrounding area is in very good hands with all these committed groups.
Posted by: sherey | February 2nd, 2011 at 11:57 am
Thank you so much for attending this important event and sharing with your audience the many great things that are happening in Bedford. As a follow-up to the Environmental Action Day, Rusticus Garden Club will be hosting a FREE screening of the Oscar-nominated film, Gasland,about hydrofracking on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 9:30 am at the Bedford Playhouse in Bedford New York. A panel of experts from Riverkeeper, the Nature Conservancy and CWCWC will answer questions your questions after the film.
Posted by: Kathryn Hoenig | February 2nd, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Thank you so much for coming to our event, and for your kindness in sharing it with your online community. If people want to know more about Environmental Action Day, they can visit http://www.EnergizeBedford.org They can learn about home energy audits, homeowner resources, and link to partner organizations such as Bedford2020!
We're all in this together — wherever you live, pay us a visit and learn what these (free) programs can do for people everywhere.
Posted by: Christopher Roberts | February 2nd, 2011 at 2:43 pm
martha..im watching your show as i write..heart disease , and healthy tips to prevent..
i was immediately reminded, t hat monday feb. 7 start congenital heart disease awareness week..my four year old great grandson recently had open heart surgery ...please please please..its to make people aware of the chance of these lovely children..so sweet..that it can happen to all..and a simple test will help you to understand, and know if your child is affected...one in one hundred children born are affected by this disease..we want to spread the word .. a very grateful great-grandma..judy sanders
Posted by: judith sanders | February 2nd, 2011 at 3:57 pm
You always seem to amaze me Martha. You seemed to had a good time while learning on ways to help the enviroment. Your blog is fantastic, and I always love coming to your blog and seeing what you are up to now.
Posted by: Paula Jo @ Outdoor Garden Decorations | February 2nd, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Glad to see community environmentalism. I've had my own day of service and celebration for the last 6 years. My favorite trout stream was my focus and I asked other anglers, landowners and local residents to help me clean it up. Before doing this, I had never so much as organized a brownie troop, but I quit waiting for "somebody" do do something. So each spring around Earth Day we take tons of trash and recyclables out of the Rush River in Pierce County Wisconsin. Then we gather for food and fellowship at a local sportsmen's club.
Posted by: Sarah Sanford | February 2nd, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Thanks Martha!!! We are so excited about launching the Energize progam in Bedford and can't wait to roll it out to the other neighboring communities in the Northern Westchester Energy Action Consortium (NWEAC).
Saturday was indeed a great day for the program with over 150 homeowners signing up!!!
I encourage each and every homeowner in Northern Westchester who wants to make their home MORE comfortable and use LESS energy to sign up at http://www.EnergizeBedford.org.
Best.
Tom Bregman
Director
Energize Bedford / Energize Northern Westchester
Posted by: Tom Bregman | February 2nd, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Great work Bedford 2020 ! The efforts to control emissions is wonderful, and we should also work on the 27% of Bedford's emissions which come from Transport - ride a bicycle in 2011 !
Posted by: Terry Burke | February 2nd, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Martha, what a great community you live in. I am sure it was a snowy day also and it looks like a good turn out.
Frack drilling is a hot topic here in Eastern Montana. With such limited water the drilling really depletes the already shallow table. It is difficult to encourage families not to follow the money but the outcome might not be in the best interest of the environment. Thanks for sharing your day. Cheers!
Posted by: robin ball | February 2nd, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Martha-thanks for writing a great blog,I have just found it. I will look forward to your next post. cheers to you from S. CA.+Happy New Year today- the year of the rabbit. xx peggybraswelldesign.com
Posted by: Peggy | February 3rd, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Martha - I am a member of a Garden Club that maintains our towns flower beds, raises money for local scholarships, and volunteers in many ways. We host an auction every other year amongst club members to raise money for our flowers, mulch and miscellaneous.
Can I entice you into joining us this year for a surprise treat? We always like to set our auction date for early May but will make ourselves available to your schedule. Thinking we might hold our event at our regional Botanical Garden - with a Garden Party theme.
What do you think?
p.s. - we have made your onion soup recipe from your 2002 cook book and it is a fabulous hit every time! Love you!
Posted by: Nancy | February 5th, 2011 at 10:19 am
I'm so proud of Bedford for taking environmental causes seriously with Bedford 2020. (And so proud of my daughter, smiling in picture #4, for speaking at the event as Fox Lane High School's representative.) Thank you, Martha, for posting this important event.
Posted by: Andrea Thompson | February 16th, 2011 at 10:51 am
Thanks for coming! We would love for you and everyonelse to check out our website for Mill River Supply at http://www.millrivergardensupply.com
We post our monthly newsletter and also have an online shop.
Thanks!
Posted by: Jeff May-Stahl | March 1st, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Hi there !
We enjoyed seeing you at the BEDFORD 2020.
We would love for you to come to our Natural/Organic Seminar being help on May 22 at the Westmoreland Sanctuary.
our purpose is to educate people on what is available out there to help care for their lawn and gardens, the natural way !
Please keep us in mind !
Thanks !
Lee Apgar Von Elm
Mill River Supply
Posted by: Lee Apgar | May 9th, 2011 at 4:16 pm