The Reformed Church’s congregation will spend the morning in prayer on that Sunday, reflecting on the creation story from the Book of Genesis – which has environmentalist themes. Christians and Jews believe that God told Adam, the first human man, to name and care for the animals of the primeval earth. While sponsored by a Christian organization, the Earth Day Fair itself is a bit more secular. It runs from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. “It’s dealing with very modern concerns about what’s happening with our environment and what we can do,” O’Dowd said.
New Paltz Reformed Church started an Earth Day event early in the new century. Since then other Christian denominations – including the Catholic Church, which declared pollution a sin in 2008 – have focused on the environment. “We’re really in something of a perilous state,” said O’Dowd. “I think it’s going to fall heaviest on the young people in our little planet.” For more information about the Earth Day Fair, call 255-6340 or e-mail [email protected].
Highland
Citizens of Lloyd will have some chance to show love for Planet Earth on Saturday, April 27, during the townwide Clean Sweep. Interested people should gather at the town hall for a continental breakfast at 8:30 a.m. Participants should look to group in teams of four to collect litter. The town hall will have a sign-up binder with suggested areas of town to clean. As in New Paltz and other towns, people who’d like to focus on their own neighborhoods are welcomed to participate, too.
Trash pickers should know there’s only a limited number of highway department vests and trash bags for litter removal. So make sure to come early to get the right gear.
Lloyd’s events and beautification committee is also looking for volunteers to tend plants in the town that Saturday as well. If pruning plantings is more your style, call Kate Jonietz at 691-2144, ext. 100 to volunteer.
Gardiner
Gardiner offers Earth Day and spring-cleaning events in which to participate. On the weekend before Earth Day – Saturday, April 20, and Sunday, April 21 – the town’s annual spring cleanup will take place.
Like the clean sweeps in neighboring towns, participants should expect to head out to the roads to pick up litter or beautify their own neighborhoods. Garbage bags are available at the town hall during normal business hours.
According to town supervisor Carl Zatz, Gardiner’s cleanup is not formal, and the town isn’t giving as much guidance about what needs to be cleaned as may be true in other municipalities. In other words, participants should arrive with a good sense of which areas they’d like to clean already.
Even so, Zatz noted that the weekend event is a great chance to stow the cynicism and help out. “There are a lot of complaints about trash, winter trash, on the sides of the roads and in the ditches,” he said. “This is a good opportunity for everyone to come out and take care of the litter and trash that’s accumulated.”
When the work is done, trash pickers can head to the Gardiner transfer center to deposit their trash bags for free. For more info about the cleanup, call the town hall at 255-9675.
On Monday, April 22, Earth Day itself, the branch of Ulster Savings Bank at Ireland Corners in Gardiner will have an Earth Day event from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. People who show up at the bank that day can expect wonderful local foods, including local honey, grass-fed beef hamburgers, and other green products. Local vendors will be hawking goods, the kids can make arts and crafts, and the first 50 people to show up will get a white pine sapling to take home.
People from the Gardiner-based St. Charles Borromeo Church will also be at the bank’s Earth Day celebration to take donations for their Helping Hands Ministry Food Pantry. They’ll be accepting canned foods. To learn more about what’s going on at Ulster Savings Bank, call Gardiner branch manager Kathy DeLano at 255-4262, ext. 4401.
Rosendale
For people who’d like to celebrate Earth Day with thought-provoking cinema, Rosendale Theatre’s event on Saturday, April 20, is probably the best bet. The theater will be showing “YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip” – a documentary about a team of three people who travel to each of the 50 states in a single year to find ways to live sustainably. The movie tries to answer the questions that normal people ask themselves: Is it too late to save the environment? What else can Americans do to live green?
The show starts at 7:15 p.m. and tickets cost $7 for the general public and $5 for Rosendale Theatre members. Following the movie, there’s to be a question-and-answer panel with Rosendale Environmental Commission chairwoman Jennifer Metzger, EcoWatch’s Paul E. McGinniss and the film’s director, Ben Evans. Head to www.rosendaletheatre.org for information.
An Earth Day celebration sponsored by the Eco-spirit, Inner Transition Network will be held at the Sky Lake Contemplative Center in Rosendale from 9:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Leaders representing fifteen spiritual and faith traditions will offer inner exploration and sacred practices from their respective traditions in celebration of the earth which sustains us all. The public is invited.
In addition to scholarship and rituals, there will be concerts, contemplative activities and a farm-to-table luncheon. The program is free, but reservations must be made for the farm-to-table Lunch. Register online to reserve a space and make your luncheon donation of $15. For additional information call 646-241-8386.
