Earth Day 2010: 40 Years and Counting

Posted By: Kelly Marston

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. That is exciting and at the same time sobering to think that we need to designate a day on which to honor the world around us. We are fortunate to be surrounded with amazing natural beauty. Every day at camp is a celebration of nature and the ways that people can live with nature respectfully.

Make Earth Day every day

We can move mountains, but it doesn't need to be all at once. Decisions that we make do add up. At camp, living in concert with nature is a part of life and we work to equip kids with tools to take home with them.

Take a tea cup shower: Maybe you aren't having to heat your water by building a fire, but taking a shorter shower each day will save immense amounts of water and the power it takes to heat that water. (Maybe you can even convince your parents that you don't have to shower every day).  Even more ways to conserve.

Set up a compost: More cities have municipal compost, but it is very simple to set up a compost pile at home. You can be precise and scientific or just add the mix of paper, food, and leaves that you have at your house. Both will work.

Eat locally sourced food: At camp most of our food is as local as it can be. In fact much of it is grown on site. That's not possible for most of us, but we can sign up for CSA's (community supported agriculture) and have local farmers provide produce to your family, go to farmer's markets, and when we are selecting food choose whole, unprocessed food that was grown as close as possible.

There are so many ideas, so many things that we can each do. I once read that "the limits of the imagination are unimaginable" and know that if I apply that to each of our campers there is no limit to the impact we can have on making a better tomorrow.