By Stephen Vance, Staff
Meaford’s Earth Week organizing committee made a presentation to council at their May 25 meeting to provide an update on the success of this year’s Earth Week events.
Organizing committee member Jenean Lush told council that the second year for the event exceeded the exceptional participation of last year’s inaugural Earth Week in Meaford.
Lush said that more than 20 children attended the Bee Movie at Meaford Hall on April 18. In addition to the movie, the children were able to interact with beekeeping equipment and to ask questions of local beekeeper Rick Elzby.
The following day a record 41 volunteers turned out for the 6th annual Memorial Park Clean-up sponsored by The Meaford Independent. The Meaford Museum also saw a large turnout of 68 people for their celebration of conservationist John Muir’s birthday on April 21.
Several Meaford residents attended the many educational sessions held throughout the week including 41 who turned out to learn about food packing safety.
The Earth Week event that attracted the largest involvement was the second annual Re-Use Fair, which this year also included an Eco Fair that showcased more than 20 local vendors and organizations.
The Re-Use Fair and Eco Fair were held at the Meaford & St. Vincent Community Centre on Saturday, April 18. The reuse fair is a one-day community event where unwanted but reusable household items are collected and passed on to charities, non-profits, artisans, and schools which need them. Prior to the event, local organizations prepared wish lists of items they could use, and that list was made available to the general public who might have had items on the list to donate.
A total of 14 community groups received items from the Re-Use Fair. Those items, which weighed in at 1,791.2 pounds (an increase of 225 pounds from last year) were packed by organizers into some 100 boxes in preparation for distribution to the community groups.
Council was pleased with the information provided in the presentation, and Mayor Barb Clumpus expressed thanks to the Earth Week organizers.
“I thank you for all that you’ve done for the community with this group. It’s obviously on track to get bigger every year, and we congratulate you for that,” said Clumpus.
