Eastside Earth Week 2012
EASTSIDE EARTH WEEK 2012 RECAP!
EASTSIDE EARTH WEEK BUILDS ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS FOR OVER 800 PARTICIPANTS THROUGH WEEK OF EVENTS
Dundalk, Md. The Dundalk Renaissance and Back River Restoration Committee are pleased to celebrate the success of Eastside Earth Week, which occurred last week from Saturday, April 14- Saturday, April 21, 2012. Coordinated by a group of community members, in its inaugural year Eastside Earth Week engaged over 800 residents of the Dundalk and Essex community around environmental issues.
The week kicked off with Project Clean Stream, an event hosted by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. The Back River Restoration Committee, Dundalk Renaissance Corporation, Clean Bread and Cheese Creek, St. Helena Community Association, St.Helena Neighborhood Association, and more organizations all had major clean up events on Saturday, April 14 and many surrounding dates as well. The BRRC and DRC alone had 17 cleanup sites for Project Clean Stream and removed hundreds of tires and at least 6 dumpsters of trash. We removed bowling balls, parking cones, bottles, bags, cameras, bed frames, scrap metal...you name it. It was our most successful Project Clean Stream event ever, with over 300 volunteers participating. Maryland State Delegate, Mike Weir helped with the BRRC highway clean up, where a section of Rt. 702 was dedicated to his father.
Following the cleanup, St. Helena resident Duane Phillips helped assemble the weeklong education trash art display in Veterans Park. The display was created with items dumped in the St. Helena community that were cleaned up as part of Project Clean Stream. All week long the display encouraged viewers to think twice before littering or dumping in the Dundalk community with a banner created by a local artist which read “Stop Trashing Our Dundalk.”
Eastside Earth Week encouraged families and children to recycle with a successful Recycled Arts and Craft Night at the St. Helena Community Building on Tuesday, April 17. Participants made reusable shopping bags from old t-shirts, planters out of old bottles, origami from the Yellow Pages, plastic yarn from plastic bags, and more crafts from trash.
Earth Week continued to build awareness amongst local residents with Oyster Night (April 18) and Clean-Green Marina Night (April19). Oyster Night was hosted by the BRRC in partnership with Dock of the Bay. Guests enjoyed 400 free oysters courtesy of Dock of the Bay. While a teacher from Sparrows Point High School donated his time to shuck the oysters, attendees heard Marisa Olszewski and Sandy Runyan speak on the impact of oysters and mussels on the Chesapeake Bay. The BRRC gave a recap of their year-long oyster program in Back River and the Oyster Recovery Partnership’s shell recycle program.
On Thursday evening, the DRC partnered with Anchor Bay East Marina and Hard Yacht Café to educate community members on clean boating practices and the Maryland’s Clean Marina Initiative. Over 60 guests enjoyed hors d'oeuvres donated by the Hard Yacht Café and completed Clean Marina quizzes to earn a DRC t-shirt and be placed in a drawing for a Hard Yacht Café gift card. Anchor Bay East Marina was a perfect location for this event as it was one of the first certified Clean Marinas in Maryland!
Friday, April 20, County Executive Kevin Kamenetz held a press conference at the Back River trash boom to kick off his "Clean Green County" campaign. The campaign slogan is "Don't drop it!” Kamenetz was joined by the BRRC, the DRC, and Baltimore County Dept. of Environmental Protection and Sustainability, Channel 13, Channel 11, State Delegation Chairman John Olszewski, Jr., Delegate Mike Weir, and Councilman John Olszewski, Sr. among many others. You can see the campaign here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58CK2GzAJsI&feature=player_profilepage. He used the trash boom as his location to kick off this campaign because in the past year, we have removed 176 TONS of trash/debris from this spot.
Eastside Earth Week concluded with 6 community cleanups, 2 tree plantings, and a rain barrel sale on Saturday, April 21. The DRC partnered with the Dundalk Tenant Landlord Community Association (DTLCA) for their “Community Rat Clean Up”. One of the missions of the DTLCA is to rid the community of rats. They made great strides hauling 75 bags of trash and 6 truckloads of bulk items out of the community with the help of over 40 volunteers from the community, Dundalk Middle School, Dundalk High School, and the Alternative Sentencing Program. With the help of Towson University students the St. Helena community, DRC, Old Dundalk Neighborhood Association, and Norwood Holabird Community Association were able to host 3 additional cleanup sites for the day removing more than 2 dumpsters of trash from the Dundalk community.
The Turner Station Conservation Team and Baltimore Port Alliance hosted a cleanup at Turner Station Park which filled a dumpster donated by Ports America in under 3 hours. During the cleanup the DRC, employees from the Port, Turner Station residents, and Towson students planted 13 trees at the Turners Station Community Garden. Through student volunteers at Dundalk High School (DHS), the DRC also had a presence at the DHS Earth Day Fair selling discounted rain barrels to the community.
The BRRC joined the Ridgeleigh Community Association in a community clean up and tree planting. Nearly 300 volunteers included Calvert Hall students, Boy Scouts, and Towson University students. Volunteers removed 2 dumpsters of trash and planted 40 trees and shrubs. Country Executive Kevin Kamenetz also joined in to plant a tree and promote the Clean Green County Campaign.
Clean Bread and Cheese Creek also hosted a cleanup at Stansbury Park with the help of the Eastfield-Stanbrook Community. Earth Week concluded with the Department of Natural Resources presenting “Scales and Tales” to a packed room at the North Point Library, supported by a Baltimore County Police Department Youth Activity Grant for which DRC serves as the 501 c-3 pass-through organization.
Eastside Earth Week proved successful in its ability to touch the lives of a diverse group of residents. It would not have been possible without the collaborative effort of all the organizations listed above. Financial support for coordination of Earth Week came from the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability and the Baltimore Community Foundation. Special thanks to the community members who made up the Eastside Earth Week Steering Committee: Duane Phillips, Anna Thomas, Will Feuer, Monica Holliday, Brianna Smith, Marisa Olszewski, John Long, Patricia Paul, Molly Williams and Leah Bunck.
What a Great 2012 Eastside Earth Week!
See you next year!
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Saturday Kick-off with Project Clean Stream!
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Saturday
Sunday
PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL SUMMER/FALL
Click here to register or contact Leah at 410.282.0261 or leah@dundalkusa.org
THANKS!!
Eastside Earth Week is made possible through partnerships with the Dundalk Renaissance Corporation, Back River Restiration Commitee, Clean Bread and Cheese Creek, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Project Clean Stream, Baltimore County Police Department, St. Helena Community Association, Dundalk Tenant Landlord Community Association, HR Block, and our great Earth Week Steering Committee (Anna, Marisa, John, Daune, Brianna, Patricia, Will). THANKS EVERYONE!
