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Click here to download the "It's Easy Being Green" bookmark (pictured at left):
Articles FGCCT President's Project: 2007-2009 The Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut have been protectors of the environment since it was founded. Club members have sponsored recycling, weeded invasive plants, organized litter removal from towns and highways, planted butterfly gardens, educated the public, sponsored open space and the list goes on and on. We have done a good job but recent reports on global warming and our dependence on foreign oil makes our President’s Project current and important. We are asking each club to look over their past, and current environment projects. Do they need a little ‘dusting off’? Set an environmental goal for your club. Each person in each club can make a positive difference. Working together it will be so easy to be green. This space in our NEWS will be used to share projects clubs have found successful in their towns or communities. [Download the President's Project "It's Easy to Be Green" form here.] Let us see, read and hear what your club is doing on this very important topic by E-mail, telephone (203-416-1795) or mail (6 Taunton Hill Road, Newtown, Ct 06470). Each club that participates will be recognized at the annual Awards Luncheon. Remember, it’s so easy being green. From the February 2008 NEWS Anita Wardell of the Suffield Garden Club is sharing what the SGC has done to involve the community in a very important environmental issue. Last year Anita said their club chose “to instill respect for the environment” as their theme. Working with the Public Works Department they co-sponsored a Hazardous Waste Day. To bring more emphasis to the Hazardous Waste Day they provided the These special days that collect Hazardous Waste are very important in keeping our natural water resources and our drinking water safe. People want to dispose of Hazardous Materials properly. But are often at a loss as to what is hazardous and then how to get rid of it. It appears the Suffield Garden Club answered these needs in several ways. First they set a date for the Hazardous Waste Day, then they educated the public about what constitutes Hazardous Waste. They worked with the Junior Gardeners teaching the children signal words like caution, dangerous, or hazardous. The children were given a survey to take home to look for products in their home and see if they were stored properly. Anita said this was such a success they plan to repeat it again this year. To complete their theme “to instill respect for the environment,” their Conservation Committee planned a community workshop on Green Cleaning. They talked about alternative cleaning products which could be purchased at their local stores. Everyone likes workshops, and at this one a green window cleaner and a green furniture polish was made for the participants to take home. They passed out recipes for Green Cleaning and are most willing to share them with you. Gentle Window Cleaner
For more recipes for Green Cleaning, check www.suffieldgardenclub.org Thank you Anita and the Suffield Garden Club for sharing a successful body of work. Remember Its Easy Being Green, It was a pleasure to hear NGC President, Barbara May, speak at our Awards Meeting. She gave a great deal of information concerning her project, Nuture the Earth, Plant Natives. The School Yard project she spoke of, is practical for clubs of all sizes. It’s Easy Being Green! The FGCCT are working hard throughout the state on innovative green projects to improve the environment. The North Haven Garden Club involved the community by holding a contest in the Middle School and High School. They used ‘Pitch In and Pick Up” as the slogan for a poster contest at the Middle School and a bumper sticker contest in the High School. The bumper stickers were made available to the public throughout the town. As a final phase of the campaign to keep New Haven clean and litter free they cleaned the Jewish Cemetery and Tuttle Brook. Hat’s off to committee members Barbara Brow, Barbara Esposito, and Cathy Watts along with all the members of the East Haven Garden Club. Caring for our environment is being aware and diligent. It is important to read labels on all purchases, whist it is a food item or an appliance. Questions you might ask yourself, is the product made of recycled materials and can I recycle it? Does this save energy? Do you know what the ingredients are that are listed on a food item or on a bag of fertilizer? Knowledge is a powerful tool in the protection of our environment. Passing by a beautiful wooded property along one of our Connecticut roads, which is being developed into a commercial area, I noticed it was being cleared or ‘clean cut’. To quote from Joni Mitchell’s 1960 lyrics, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you be got till its gone ----they paved paradise and put in a parking lot”. State and National Projects Chairman Many clubs have begun an environment program or project and are excited about the enthusiasm they are getting from their club members and communities. The following is an update on activities of some of our Clubs. The Wilton Garden Club has been very busy these last few months with their environmental endeavors. They helped sponsor a community forum on energy saving and green living. The Key Note speaker was Jerre Dawson, their President, who is a passionate proponent of “Green Living”. Jerre told about renovating her historic home using green technology. Her home was on the spectacular Flower Show and Kitchen Tour, held in late September. The Milford Garden Club is designing a garden using Native Plants for the new Coast Guard Building in New Haven. Danbury is selling cloth shopping bags, with their logo on them. This is a good project and an excellent way to let your neighborhood know about your club. Caudatowa choose Its Easy To be Green for the title of their yearbook. Green awareness is scattered throughout the schedule. A publication, edited by Timothy M. Abby of The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, for the Connecticut Invasive Plant Working Group, entitled Alternatives for Invasive Ornamental Plant Species would be excellent tool if planning a garden using native species. This publication is available from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, P.O. Box 1106, New Haven, CT 06504-1106. Facts about Invasive Species: Invasive Species are spreading over approximately 1,729,730 acres per year of United States wildlife habitat, and cost our economy $35 billion in damages and treatment each year. Let us hear what your club is doing to improve our environment. Remember! “Its Easy Being Green”. State and National Project Chairman State Project (from the July-August NEWS) Lee Bauerfeld, former President of the FGCCT and member of the Branford Garden Club, is the FGCCT liaison to the Connecticut State Parks. As more land is developed in our state, the State Park system grows in importance. As you read what Lee has written you will realize the part our State Parks play in our changing environment. FRIENDS OF CONNECTICUT STATE PARKS Mission Statement: The Friends of Connecticut State Parks is a volunteer organization whose mission is to support State Parks and Forests through education, advocacy and public awareness. The Friends politically and publicly advocate for sufficient Legislative funding to operate and maintain our parks and forests through events such as “No Child Left Inside”, “The Great Park Pursuit” and through publications such as “A Shared Landscape”, published by the Friends in 2004, which describes 128 State Parks and Forests through pictorials, narrative and maps. The Friends also undertake projects to improve the appearance and condition of the State Parks and Forests. The idea of a “park” immigrated to America with fundamental changes in transit. When laying out what would become Boston, the first thing our Puritan ancestors did was to reserve a central common for the use of all colonists. The Revolutionary War was still a century and a half in the future, but the American park began as a refuge for the citizenry, not for the King. Our parks are reserved for the exclusive use of everyone. Connecticut is extremely small by national standards. No point in the state is more than two hours from any other point. Nevertheless, we enjoy an amazing diversity of terrain and biology that puts much larger states to shame. Between our mountains, beaches, exotic bogs, rivers, shorefronts and forests, there are a myriad of recreational choices. Our State Parks welcome the public in various activities such as fishing, hiking, swimming and boating. Unlike many other states, we have no national parks in the traditional sense and no county parks. State Parks provide the only large scale system of natural resource based recreation lands. The underlying philosophy of the selection process for out state parks was and is still valid today, to identify those unique elements of our landscape that are characteristic to Connecticut and set them aside for public ownership. Our parks are the treasures for all to enjoy. Our state parks not only promote recreational usage, but they are and integral part of our state’s history. Fort Griswold State Park in Groton is the historic site where British forces, commanded by the infamous Benedict Arnold, captured the fort and massacred 88 of the 165 defenders stationed there. Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill is a 200 million year old archeological jewel with hundreds of dinosaur footprints. Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam was the fantasy home of actor William H. Gillette, who build the castle between 1914 and 1919, adding the tower in 1923. It is made of local fieldstone, sits atop a steep hill about 200 feet above the Connecticut River and looks more like it grew from the cliff than was built there. The castle is unique, the grounds are beautiful and the Friends of Gillette Castle State Park are currently refurbishing the “one of a kind” Railroad. Friends of the Connecticut State Parks was formed in 1995 by a group of individuals from six different volunteer state parks Friends groups who saw the need for a unified voice to speak on behalf of all state parks. Each volunteer State Parks Friends Group (currently 21) has a different orientation as to their activities, though all have a common goal of improving the quality of their particular state park. Each group provides services that enhance the state park experience for their users. Our State Parks are held in public trust for all of us to enjoy, The investment we have made in our natural legacy can only be protected if we as individuals take a personal stake in its future, There are many individual garden club members who are active with various “Friends” groups. There is a State Park near you that needs help and the mechanisms are in place - - BE INVOLVED. For additional information about our State Parks you may contact Lee at Leedickbau@sbcglobal.net. Do consider a State Park or your local park in your clubs' environmental awareness program. Take your club, your family or your friends for a pleasant outing, explore, enjoy, and as Lee said, “be involved”, and remember It’s Easy Being Green. Sandra Dickinson, State Project Chairman “ITS EASY TO BE GREEN’ (from the June NEWS) Throughout our great State, villages, towns, and cities have sponsored a “clean-up’ day. Federated Garden Clubs spearheaded many of these events. If your town does not participate in a spring-cleaning, perhaps, the following narrative will inspire to do so. Beth Yanity, Caudatowa Garden Club’s Conservation Chairman tells how “Rid Litter Day” has become a town tradition. Ridgefield’s anti-litter story began in 1964 when the Marine Corps League conducted a roadside trash pickup on the three main arteries of the town. Trucks, which were available from a nearby Armory, would lead baseball players, and boy scouts who would fill them with items homeowners placed by the road. Items left were tires, washing machines and other household items. The roads looked great, but there was still litter in parking lots, ball fields, schools, and parks. In 1991, as Conservation Chairman of the Caudatowa Garden Club, I felt that a town-wide litter clean-up, involving the whole community and all the roads would be great. ANTI-LITTER was a “hot topic” for our state clubs at this time. I approached our First Selectman and the director of Parks and Recreation to plan a campaign for an annual town-wide clean-up along with the Marines Roadside Pick-Up. We chose the slogan “Let’s Make A Clean Sweep of Ridgefield” on Rid Litter Day. A local artist created a logo, a broom sweeping the letters LITTER. I contacted twenty organizations, schools and business for their participation and explaining the impact of litter reaching storm drains then polluting rivers and streams and eventually Long Island Sound. Through grants, safety vests were ordered and printed with Ridgefield Litter Patrol and the Broom logo. Clear plastic bags for bottle and can recycling, and opaque ones for other litter were donated along with pick-up point signs that were printed with the sponsoring organizations. Five School Parking Lots and a Lake Assoc. was the selected pick up areas. The Ridgefield Schools permitted us to send flyers home with the students. Posters were displayed in the windows of the local business and The Ridgefield Press printed an editorial promoting our first Rid Litter Day listing all the necessary information for the event. Rid Litter Day was successful and the town looked pristine for several months, but by fall, litter had accumulated. To promote additional awareness Caudatowa Garden Club waded through a little “red tape” and placed signs at the towns entrances stating; “KEEP RIDGEFIELD BEAUTIFUL – PLEASE DON’T LITTER” Thank You, Caudatowa Garden Club. The program has been very successful, along with the Adopt a Street/Spot Program litter in our town has all but disappeared. Let us hear about your successful environmental projects, if we all work together it will be easy to be green. Sandra Dickinson, State Project Chairman |
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