Glen Ellyn Earth Day celebration - report

Various local environmental groups attended, and created plenty of warth and excitement as we shared our stories about what we do to improve the environment.  Pictured - Jodi Trendler and Kenneth King of Naperville Green Drinks.

Barb Perry of the First Presbyterian Church Earthlings wrote the following:

- Sierra Club River Prairie Group: Connie Schmidt encouraged membership. Political action. http://illinois.sierraclub.org/rpg/

Cool Cities: Jeff Gahris. A part of Sierra Club. Initiative started by Mayor of Seattle.

o Look into Blue Star Energy. http://www.bluestarenergy.com/
o Watt meters can be checked out at the library to see how much power our appliances are sucking.
o Average home uses 10,900 kWh/year (in the past year we used 11,854) http://illinois.sierraclub.org/rpg/coolcities.html

- Citizens for Glen Ellyn Preservation: Linda Gilbert. A lot about the tree ordinance. http://www.glenellynpreservation.org/

- Glen Ellyn Environmental Commission. More about the tree ordinance. Go to website for schedule of events. http://www.glenellyn.org/Commissions/Environmental.html

- Glenbard West Eco Club. Very active and energetic group. I didn’t know there were solar ipod chargers.

- Ben Lowe. Now works for Evangelical Environmental Network. Talked about starting a community garden in his apartment complex on Roosevelt and Main Street. http://creationcare.org/

- Green Group. Small group in Glen Ellyn that meets monthly at PPK Architects. Will have a booth at the Taste of Glen Ellyn this year where you can enter an energy challenge with ComEd to see who can reduce their energy the most over the summer.

- Green Drinks in Naperville uses social networking to communicate. http://www.greendrinks.org/IL/Naperville
o Also mentioned meetup.

- Earthlings: Barb Perry (pictured) shared the group’s mission and activities, including Creation Care Sunday (beehouses, rain barrels and battery collection), our Facebook page and our desire to help the poor.

- SCARCE showed a lead-free garden hose sold at Ace Hardware, passed out cards to check to see if your toilet leaks and said that we will all have to reduce our water usage by 15% by 2025.

- Green Festival is May 14 and 15 at McCormick Place

Thanks to Bethany Licht – circulation manager – for putting this all together.--Barb Perry

Glen Ellyn Cool Cities Coalition also thanks Bruce Blake of the Sierra Club for contacting all of the presenters and handling much of the logistics.