Valley Earthfest

Valley Earthfest is coming! Make everyday earthday and come to Rose Hill Park in Berryville on June 6th to see vendors from around the valley, an environmental film festival, kids activities, music on the lawn, local restaurants cooking up Earth themed fixins, even a Lawn Gnome Costume Contest. If your business wants to be an exhibitor, spaces are FREE! That's right, free. Why? Because the folks at eCycle want to help you be green and share green without taking your green. If you want to be a sponsor either of money or of supplies, there's a great website and some PR material that you will be on. They are also looking for volunteers to help out (there's a cool t-shirt in it for you!). So email Cheryl to be an exhibitor, a sponsor, or a volunteer. Click on the link to learn more.

Green Drinks - June 5th

Green Drinks will be kicking off Valley Earthfest this year! I know I told you it'd be on the 4th Thursday in May, but I lied. It will be on Friday June 5th and we'll be hearing from Linda Kurtz about how to green our personal environments AND we'll be hearing more about what will be available at Valley Earthfest!

When? June 5th at 5:30 (Friday)

Where? Camino Real in Berryville (click here for a map)

Why? To kick off Valley Earthfest and learn more about greening our personal environments. (oh, and chips and salsa!)

Green Drinks - Earth Day Thank You!

A big THANK YOU to Ferguson's for hosting our last Green Drinks and working with their vendors to provide snacks and drinks, to Jed Rau of Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District for being our featured speaker. We set a personal record for Green Drinks attendees with 43!! Unfortunately, our area ONLY had 1200 folks show up, so Melbourne still holds the record. But we will try again next year, so mark your calendars for Earth Day 2010 (and your mom's calendar, and your brother's, your neighbor's, your kid's 2nd grade teacher's... you get the idea).

Compost Bin and Rain Barrel SALE!!

Frederick County Recycling will host a one-day only truckload sale of compost bins and rain barrels on Sat. June 20 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the D.J. Howard parking lot. Bins will sell for a reduced price of $36 and barrels, $55.

This is the info from the PDF Flyer. Email me and I'll send you the actual flyer....


FREDERICK COUNTY INVITES YOU TO JOIN OVER 3,000 COMMUNITIES IN MODERN HOME COMPOSTING AND RAINWATER HARVESTING

Did you know that having 1,000 residents in your community actively composting would divert 600,000 lbs of organic waste from going to local landfills per year?

Did you know that one inch of rain falling on a 1,000 sq. ft. roof harvests up to 600 gallons of rainwater for use on your lawns and gardens without turning on a tap?

Earth Machine™ Compost Bins and SYSTERN Rain Barrels will be available in the parking lot at the following location:
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
9 am - 3 pm
Dowell J. Howard Learning Center
156 Dowell J Circle
Winchester, VA 22602
(near intersection of Berryville Pike and Valley Mill Road)
Cash or check ONLY
For more information, please contact Frederick County at
(540) 665-5643 ext. 1, or visit www.fcrecycles.net
Norseman Environmental Sale LLP

Film "How to Save the World"

For the Greater Good, Inc. will not have the film, "How to Save the World" at Shenandoah University on 24 May. If you are interested in seeing the film please contact me by 20 May.

This film shares the work of Peter Proctor, a farmer from New Zeland, who has gone to India several years to assist small farmers in reclaiming their land - land which was often decimated by the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. NPR recently did a report on the plight of many farmers in India for whom an increasing reliance on water demanded by the "green revolution" has dropped the water table significantly. Here is a link to that program on NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102893816

Proctor's work uses composting and Biodynamic approaches to agriculture as a way to heal the land. Here is a link to Proctor's work http://www.celsias.com/article/reversing-the-green-revolution/

Robert Hughes sees this 3rd film as pointing out a sustainable and efficient approach to agriculture. In some ways the first 2 films in our series helped us be aware of many of the problems of "agriculture" based on the industrial model and controlled by a few major corporations and politicians. This third film shows the viability of an alternative.

Should you wish to join in, give a call or e-mail to Robert Hughes:

540-665-8989 goinggreen4339@gmail.com http://sites.google.com/site/nsvballe/

Farm to Fork

Long Branch Historic House and Farm in cooperation with Locke Store presents:

Farm to Fork: Discovering the pleasure of eating locally year-round.

May 18th, 2009 from 3pm-6pm

5 dynamic speakers discuss the benefits of growing, cooking, and enjoying local food. Food and wine tasting reception featuring local producers immediately following the forum

Ticket price is $45 per person
For ticket sales and additional information, call 540-837-1848
or go to the link above.