You're invited...

 ...to EARTH WEEK at Ithaca College! It's all we can talk about these days... we are so excited to bring you a fantastic week of events celebrating the Earth!

Please join ICES (the IC Environmental Society) and REMP (the IC Resource and Environmental Management Program) for our annual Earth Week celebration at Ithaca College! There are TONS of awesome events going on with something for everyone. All events are free and open to the public – please spread the word. Invite friends to the FB event here. We hope to see you there!

Here is the full list of events… and we’re still adding more! For the most up-to-date schedule and event descriptions, check out the page above.

MONDAY, 4/16:
- IC Natural Lands nature walk, 12pm, South Hill Natural Area kiosk behind Terrace 10
- Bike repair clinic, 1-3pm, Academic Quad
- Hempstravaganza/Earth Week kickoff: Live music & hemp jewelry making, 12-5pm, Fitness Center Quad (tentative)
- Sustainability Café: “Fracking is a Crime!” 4pm, CNS 112
- “Waxing Swidjit: Using Social Media to Facilitate the Collaborative Economy,” 7pm, Textor 101

TUESDAY, 4/17:
- Friction fire kit workshop (tentative)
- Bike repair clinic, 1-3pm, Academic Quad
- Locavore and wild edibles teach-in, 5-7pm, Klingenstein Lounge
- Food justice movie screening and panel discussion, 7pm, Textor 102
- “Standing Silent Nation” screening and Native Americans and Hemp panel discussion, 8-10pm, Textor 101

WEDNESDAY, 4/18:
- IC Natural Lands nature walk, 10am, South Hill Natural Area kiosk behind Terrace 10
- “Body Care Aware” workshop, 10am-2pm, Cayuga Lake Room, Campus Center
- Medicinal plants walk, 4pm, South Hill Natural Area kiosk behind Terrace 10
- Bioneers plenary talks screenings, 6-7:30pm, Textor 101
- Hemp fiber talk with Dr. Netravali, Skype with David Bronner, and screening of WIP reel of “Bringing it Home,” 8-10pm, Textor 101

THURSDAY, 4/19:
- School of Business Sustainability Symposium, 12pm, School of Business 111
- Organic garden tour/planting, 12:10pm, IC community garden (meet at Park bus stop)
- Frack Off demonstration, 12:10pm, Academic Quad
- “Empowered” screening, 6pm, Textor 103
- Bioneers plenary talks screenings, 8-9:30pm, Taughannock Falls Room, Campus Center

FRIDAY, 4/20:
- Take It Or Leave It clothing swap, 10am-3pm, Academic Quad
- Net Impact carrot mob, 3-7pm, Waffle Frolic
- IC Natural Lands nature walk, 12pm, South Hill Natural Area kiosk behind Terrace 10
- Forestry exercises training, 2pm, South Hill Natural Area

SUNDAY, 4/22 (EARTH DAY):
- Permaculture garden workday, 2-4pm, IC permaculture garden (between Williams Hall and Mac’s)
- Earth Day celebration at Farmers’ Market, 12-5pm, Steamboat Landing

This year’s events are co-sponsored by:
ICES (IC Environmental Society)
REMP (Resource and Environmental Management Program)
Sustainability at Ithaca
Organic Growers of IC
IC Natural Lands
IC Net Impact
Bomber Bike Initiative
Primitive Skills Club
Frack Off
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
IC Feminists
Ithaca Dining Services
GreenStar Natural Foods Market
Sustainable Tompkins
Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes
Swidjit
Slow Food Ithaca College
IC Permaculture Research Team

Questions? Please contact Margaret Keating at mkeatin1@ithaca.edu. We ask that inviduals requiring accommodations contact us at ices1970@gmail.com.

Finger Lakes ReUse volunteer opoprtunities

On Friday and Saturday April 6 & 7, the Finger Lakes ReUse Deconstruction team will be finishing a project at a site about a 12 minute drive south of the Ithaca Commons, and we will need help denailing. Denailing is a fun and easy project where you will use special pneumatic equipment to remove nails from salvaged lumber.

We are seeking teams of up to 10 volunteers (individuals or groups) who can join us for the following shifts:

   Friday April 6: 9 – 11:30 AM, noon-2:30 PM, 2:30-5:30 PM
   Saturday April  7: 9 – 11:30 AM, noon-2:30 PM, 2:30-5:30 PM

You may choose more than one day/time if you wish. Please RSVP to nina@fingerlakesreuse.org.

Heavy-soled boots are required. Work gloves, safety equipment, and basic tools will be provided. Please bring your own lunch and water bottle. Volunteers must sign in when arriving and complete an orientation with FLR staff before commencing any work at the deconstruction site. Volunteers are asked to provide their own transportation but we may be able to provide assistance with transport for volunteers who can be on site for the full work day.

Deconstruction Services is a program of Finger Lakes ReUse, committed to enhancing community, economy and the environment. Further information about Finger Lakes ReUse programs can be found at our website, www.fingerlakesreuse.org

Creek and Lakefront Cleanups

Embrace the Lake!

Spring 2012 ushers in the third year of encouraging community groups to Embrace Cayuga Lake with creek and lakefront cleanups. What better way to show our love for the creeks and lake at the center of our lives?

What: We are embracing and encircling Cayuga Lake with creek and lakefront cleanups, starting this spring and into early summer. Thirty-four major creeks drain to the lake, along with hundreds of small straight streams. The Network organizes a rolling schedule of weekend creek and waterfront cleanups around the lake. We invite individuals, families, schools, churches, Scouts and community groups to commit to a local cleanup. In 2011, twenty groups took part – almost completely encircling the lake!

A Spring Clean for the Network: If you would rather keep your feet dry, hold a garage sale for the benefit of the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network! Garage sales reuse and recycle, keeping waste out of the landfill. It's a great complement to the stream clean-ups. Contact us for suggestions on how to do this.

When: Groups are already scheduling cleanups for mid- and late March. A rolling schedule will keep these cleanups going until the plants grow too high for effective cleanups, in early to mid-May. The first cleanups are in Ithaca on March 31 – watch for the list later this week!

Where: Anywhere in the Cayuga Lake Watershed, where waters are flowing in the direction of Cayuga Lake. Do you have a favorite neighborhood creek or wetland, where trash has built up? Here is your chance to get that cleaned up. Was your picnic spot or shoreline area along the lake marred by garbage, last fall? Let’s get that stuff out of there!

Who: Individuals, families, schools, churches, Scouts, community groups. You! As a group organizes for a cleanup, we’ll help pick a good spot along the chosen creek or waterfront area that is safe for all ages and approved by landowners, and get the word out via email, a press release to local newspapers, radio, etc. We are only asking for a couple of hours of volunteer time to pick up trash and clean up around a carefully-selected area.

You can join a group that is already organized, or start your own.

To start your own group and cleanup event, we’ll help you organize the following details:

• A coordinator for your group – name, contact information (preferably both phone and email).
• You might want to come up with a fun name for your group and cleanup!
• A cleanup location – safe, easy-to-get-to with nearby parking, and landowner permission to be there. We’ll need clear directions to provide to volunteers who want to show up on the date.
• A time period for the cleanup (two to four hours at most) and raindate.
• Publicity – a short news release for local newspapers, radio stations, and other places you suggest (we’ll help write that and send it out).
• Garbage bags to fill, and someone to collect and dispose of them properly afterwards (we’ll help organize the pickup, and will provide garbage bags, and gloves to wear).
• A sign-in sheet for all participants (we can provide one if needed).
• Signed safety waivers for all participants (we can provide a template if needed).
• Adult supervision and permissions for all youngsters.
• Appropriate clothing and footwear.
• Refreshments.
• Someone to take photos and keep notes of what you collect.

Afterwards, we’ll want to know:

How many bags of garbage did you collect?

What was the grossest thing you found?

What was the largest thing you found?

What was the weirdest thing you found?

How would you improve this event for next year?

Awards will be made for Best, Most, Largest, Weirdest, etc!

Business Sponsorships: We are seeking donations from area businesses to help support this project. Please contact steward@ycaugalake.org if you are interested.

How to Get Involved: Contact the Network at the following email addresses and let us know you want to get involved: abenning@wells.edu or steward@cayugalake.org. You can also leave us a message at 607 319-0475. Watch for information on our Web site www.cayugalake.org and  at our Facebook page by late March – we’ll list groups with contact information and can add yours.

Love to walk in the woods? Become an IC Natural Lands Steward!

Photo by Lee Ann Hill, winner of the Fall 2011 ICNL Photo Contest

You are invited to join Ithaca College Natural Lands (ICNL) in caring for the woods surrounding campus and volunteer in the ICNL Stewards Program. Sign up by attending our informational meeting this Tuesday, 7pm in the Taughannock Falls Room in Campus Center, or send an email to icnatland@gmail.com expressing your interest.

ICNL Stewards are the sentinels of the forest, and help monitor for changes in the landscape. Being a steward is a rewarding job not only for the steward themselves but also for ICNL as we work to keep track of the ever changing land of South Hill. Stewards get the opportunity to develop a relationship with the land and be the eyes and ears for ICNL. If you've taken Environmental Sentinels, this is a great way to keep up the skills you learned and practiced in that course.

Stewards are asked to visit their parcel every week on their own time and take a short walk around (or sit still, too) to become familiar with the land and notice changes. Anyone in the IC community can be a steward: students, faculty, staff, and administration. Apart from being a great way to take a break from busy college life, becoming a steward will allow you to learn about South Hill, relate to the land, and can also be a good resume builder.

Please feel free to visit ithaca.edu/naturallands to find out more, or email me at icnatland@gmail.com with any questions.

- Madison Vander Hill
ICNL Intern

Time banking coming soon, help needed!

Here's a message from the Share Tompkins listserve about a unique opportunity to help with a sustainable initiative:


Hi all,

As some of you know, a small group has been quietly working on bringing time banking to our region.  For those that don't know, time banking offers a way to give and receive goods and services without having to pay cash. Exchanges of favors are made via membership in the system and everyone's hour is valued at the same rate, regardless of the service provided. This enables the exchanges to be tax free. The scope of services that people employ through these systems is truly staggering, and the connections made between community members who otherwise might never cross paths is inspiring. Time banking is simply and elegantly social justice and community building at its best!

Our group has done much of the heavy lifting, including identifying and implementing software (see hourworld.com for more, and look for the links to several good media pieces that have recently come out about this topic). We need to expand our number of volunteers at this time to get ourselves ready for prime time! Our goal is to offer memberships in the spring. For now, we are looking for people with a bit of time and passion for this endeavor. If this sounds like you, kindly reach out to me via email.

The words of the old CSN&Y song haunt me. We can change the world, rearrange the world. It's dying....to get better.

Thanks.

Leslie Strebel
les@lightlink.com

Deconstruction Volunteer Opportunity

Hello from the Finger Lakes ReUse Deconstruction Services Team!

The weather has been unexpectedly pleasant for late fall & we’re hoping you’ll take advantage of that and join us in helping preserve materials from a local building. We have opportunities to help with a deconstruction project near Ithaca College. Our team will be on site from 7AM until 5PM for the remainder of this week and Monday-Thursday for the following 2 weeks (December 6 – December 16). Please RSVP to Erich Kruger (erich@fingerlakesreuse.org) if you want to come for part or all of any day.

Heavy-soled boots are required. Work gloves, safety equipment, and basic tools will be provided. Please bring your own lunch and water bottle. Volunteers must sign in when arriving and complete an orientation with FLR staff before commencing any work at the deconstruction site. Volunteers are asked to provide their own transportation but we may be able to provide assistance with transport for volunteers who can be on site for the full work day.

Further information about Finger Lakes ReUse programs can be found at our website, www.fingerlakesreuse.org.

Finger Lakes ReUse Volunteer Evenings

Finger Lakes ReUse invites you to participate in our ReUse Center volunteer evenings at the ReUse Center in the Triphammer Marketplace from 5:30 to 8pm every Thursday beginning December 1 throughout the winter months. Meet great people and help make donated items ready for sale: we'll clean, sort and organize loads of really cool stuff! Help us improve retail displays, and other tasks that will help us manage the huge flow of incoming donations.

We'd like to know you're coming, so please RSVP to Louise Henrie at louise@fingerlakesreuse.org, or call (607) 257-9699.

Costumes for Cans

Join SWIFT (Stop Wasting Ithaca's Food Today) for trick-or-treating on Halloween - but not for candy! Dress up in your spookiest costume (family-friendly costumes encouraged, but not required) and help go door-to-door to collect cans and boxes of non-perishable foods for the Food Bank of the Southern Tier.

Where: All over Ithaca (meet at Textor Circle)
When: Halloween (Monday, Oct. 31), 4-7pm

To participate, sign up here for a route. Encourage your friends to help, too - the more, the merrier! Before departing for the different routes, the group will meet at the Textor Circle to confirm routes and get some last minute information.

Some FAQs about SWIFT:

Who are we?
SWIFT is a non-profit, student-run organization that aims to combine social responsibility and sustainability.

What do we do?
We salvage food from Towers Dining Hall and special catered events on campus. It is packaged into meal-sized portions and delivered to food pantries and help centers throughout Tompkins County.

How much food do we save?
SWIFT averages 35 meals per week, plus salads and leftover items from Grab-and-Go. Special event packaging greatly varies.

When do we package?
Every Friday! We meet outside at the Towers loading dock (near the TCAT bus stop) at 4:00 PM. New members are always welcome :)

How can I help?
We can always use more packagers and we will be looking for new E-Board members very soon. We’re always willing to take on new ideas and strategies, so send your thoughts to swiftoday@gmail.com and get involved!

Volunteer Opportunity: Black Diamond Trail Blazing

Want to help clear brush and small trees from a trail that may potentially be Ithaca's best biking area, the Black Diamond Trail?

The trailblazing excursion will consist of cutting down and clearing excess tree branches and bushes from this local bike trail. Our natural parks have been asking for help clearing this overgrown trail for some time. For more information, and to sign up, the website is: www.bdtrailblazing.com.

The volunteer day will be Sunday, October 16th.

Meet at Roy H. Park School of Communications

Shift 1: 11am-1pm (meet at 10:30am)

Shift 2: 1-3pm (meet at 12:30pm)

Area of trail clearing: Gorge Rd. to Kraft Rd.

Crop Mob for Flood Relief, Disaster Cleanup!

Participants in the 2011 Sustainable Community Challenge, one of IC's incoming freshman Jumpstart programs, weed some snapdragons during their crop mob at West Haven Farm in Ithaca.

From Ithaca Crop Mob:

As you all know, some areas of New York experienced some disastrous flooding from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee this season. Though the Ithaca area was not as hard-hit, other areas nearby have faced some tremendous damage.

In the spirit of regional self-reliance and interdependence, community-supported-

agriculture, and neighbor-helping-neighbor, the Ithaca Crop Mob is joining with other organizations to send out a call for volunteers to help our nearby farms get back on their feet.

Community Clean-Up Day at Engelbert Farms 

Join FaHN and the Rural Health Network to help with clean-up at Engelbert Farms, 182 Sunnyside Rd, Nichols, NY.  The clean will take place on Friday, October 7 from 9:00am-4:00pm and will include a potluck lunch. Please RSVP to Josie Maroney at jmaroney@rhnscny.org or (607) 692-7669.  We request an RSVP so that we can adequately plan, provide you with necessary details and safety procedures, and ensure a productive workday.

Engelbert Farms is a very long-standing and respected farm in this region. In fact, if you saw Kevin Engelbert give the farmer keynote at the NOFA-NY Winter Conference last year, you probably remember Kevin's touching story about how it was the first organic dairy farm in New York.
Let's work together to get there!
If you email us at ithacacropmob@gmail.com with your location and number of seats in your vehicle or people needing rides, we can connect you with others for carpooling from the Ithaca area. Sharing rides makes driving much more efficient and FUN! Together we can send a delegation of Ithacans to Engelbert.

If you cannot make this workday, but still wish to lend a hand, here are some other farms that could also use some help (thanks to Lea Kone at NOFA-NY for providing this list). If you'd like to help out one of these farms, we ask that you contact them to see when and how you can help.

Neversink Farm is in Claryville - next to the Neversink Reservoir is in some serious need.
Kate and Conor Crickmore:
Phone: 845-985-2519
farmer@neversinkfarm.com
http://www.neversinkfarm.com/
 
J & A Farm
Jeff and AdinaIndiana Road
Goshen , NY 10924
jabialasfarm@live.com
http://jabialasfarm.com
 
Lucky Dog Farms
Richard Giles & Holly White
35796 State Hwy 10
Hamden, NY 13782
607-746-9898
luckdogorganic@gmail.com
 
West Wind Farms
141 Verbeck Ave Schaghticoke,NY 12154
(518) 753-779

Remember, we are all in this together! Misfortune that befalls one of us affects all of us. Let's join hands and build a safety net across NY!

The idea behind crop mobbing is getting a group of people who wish to lend a hand on a farm, using their manpower to get a bunch of work done that would otherwise take a long time. It brings people together, helps grow local food, and is fun even if you don't have much gardening or farming experience. A lot of the time a lunch from the farm is provided, or they are potluck style.

If you'd like to join the Ithaca Crop Mob mailing list to hear about all the crop mob opportunities (they are usually closer to Ithaca) throughout the year, click here.

Second Annual Herbal Hoedown: Saturday, Oct. 1

Saturday, October 1st, 9am - 8pm
Heartstone Herbal School, 301 Brink Rd, Van Etten, NY 14889


Classes, plant walks, networking, food, and music! Learn about stress and adaptogens, herbal anti-virals, medicine making, natural basketry, medicinal/edible mushrooms, herbs for children, forest ecology, woodland medicinals, health and safety for direct action, direct perception and plants. Key-note with 7song.


Sliding scale suggested donation $5-$40; everyone welcome regardless. Other donations welcome.


Interested in volunteering or carpooling? To register or for questions contact herbalhoedown@gmail.com or call 607.592.0196.

Weigh The Waste Challenge

Join us as for another event in our Sustainability Event Series, Weigh the Waste Challenge! On Monday, September 19, sustainability interns and representatives from the Resource and Environmental Management Program (REMP) will be at all dining halls from 5:00-7:00 weighing food waste from students' plates!

Mark your calendars:

Next event (my personal favorite) Monday October 8 is World Vegetarian Day.

More info soon.

Volunteer Opportunity: CRT at Apple Harvest Festival

Check out this fun, easy way to keep this year's Apple Harvest Festival, one of our favorite festivals, as close to zero-waste as possible by helping to educate visitors about what goes in the compost, recycling, and trash. No experience is necessary! And if you volunteer for more than one shift, you get a free meal ticket!

This year's festival is being held Friday, September 30 through Sunday, October 2 on the Commons. Check out the festival schedule here.

If you are interested in volunteering, please email ithaca.crt@gmail.com with your name, phone number, and the shift(s) you would like to sign up for.

Available shifts include:

Friday, September 30th:

11:00am-2:00pm

1:30pm-4:30pm

4:00pm-7:00pm

Saturday October 1st:

10:00-1:00

1:00-4:00

4:00-7:00

Sunday October 2nd:

10:00-1:00

1:00-4:00

4:00-7:00

This is a fun and important way to enjoy the festival and keep it as sustainable as possible!