Calle Gainok is teaching her 5-year-old daughter Nora about earth-friendly practices, including eating local farm fresh foods and recycling the soil to make it more productive.
“We talk about composting and we go to the farmer’s market and decide ‘Should we eat this or should we eat that,’” Gainok said Saturday. “I think (Nora) is picking up on what we talk about.”
“I hope so,” Gainok said, “since we need to be making changes to help our environment.”
Gainok and Nora spent much of Saturday morning taking in the 8th Annual Longmont Earth Day Celebration at the Longmont Museum. Hosted by Sustainable Resilient Longmont, the celebration included an educational expo where groups could promote environmental causes.
There was also a concert with Jeff & Paige, live birds of prey with the Raptor Education Foundation and herd of baby goats. Kids got their hands dirty while learning how to compost and plant seedlings.
The event - which drew about 800 people - got a thumbs up from Gainok. “I think this was great,” she said. “I am so happy they are doing this to help educate everybody.”
In the afternoon, about 20 or so supporters marched with homemade signs from the museum to the intersection of Main Street and Ken Pratt Boulevard for a brief “Momma Earth” rally.
Many of the sign holders were children, who have become vanguards of the environmental movement, Naomi Curland, board chair with Sustainable Resilient Longmont.
“This generation is growing up with global warming…wildland fires, they consciously know what is going on around them and they want to do something about it,” Curland said. “They want to be part of the solution.”
Stand With Our Saint Vrain Creek was at the expo promoting a bird walk scheduled for Sunday 6:00 p.m., at Roger’s Grove Park in Longmont. The group is hoping to raise awareness about the Bank Swallow nesting area near Roger’s Grove, Jamie Simo said.
Simo said in an email statement that though there isn't currently funding to do the flood mitigation along the St. Vrain in the Roger's Grove area, the city of Longmont's preferred, yet unfinalized plan for that would involve making a split channel instead of widening the existing channel.
"Though this split flow channel will preserve a lot of trees that would be taken out if the channel were simply widened, work where the channel splits would destroy the area at Roger's Grove where the Bank Swallows nest. We are asking the city to come up with a plan to protect the Bank Swallows nesting area. They are are a rare and declining species with specific habitat requirements and they are only found in a handful of known places in Boulder County," Simo said.
The area abutting Roger's Grove is also where developers want to put high-density housing, called Rivertown.
CLARIFICATION: This story includes an updated explanation of the concerns of Stand WIth Our Saint Vrain Creek with city plans to widen the river channel. .
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