Last weekend DeAnn and I had a Village Properties/EcoBroker® Booth at the Santa Barbara Courthouse’s Sunken Garden. The weather was just perfect and we heard that between 14,000-16,000 people attended the celebration.
Our EcoBroker® team participated in the children’s passport program and created a ply-wood cut out of a house, designed by Daniel Wilson and painted with sustainable plants and features by Nathaniel Wagner. We drilled holes through certain locations and put labels on the home to identify the solar panels, energy star appliances, sustainable building materials, low flow faucets and showerheads, healthy indoor air quality, drought tolerant landscaping, rainwater catchment system, and no VOC paints.
DeAnn purchased hackie sacks and Daniel drilled circular holes into the plywood for the bags to be tossed through. From 10am until 5:30pm there was a line at least 5 kids deep, waiting to play the “Green Home” game. Each child that played the game received a ‘Passport Stamp’ in their booklet and if they gathered all of the stamps, the could turn it in to the Community Environmental Booth in exchange for a new toothbrush or some Polar Bear Trading Cards. Quite a few adults lined up to play too, but they weren’t eligible for the stamps! At the end of the day only a few hackie sacks were intact.
It was a new experience being a participant at the event. Last year I volunteered at the Green Building Alliance booth for three hours. This year it was non-stop and we have three pages full of leads and people interested in attending our Green Drinks Events. DeAnn and I each spent an hour volunteering at the Eco Footprint booth for The Sustainability Project. Here too people were lined up 10 deep to take the ‘Get Energized’ pledge and receive a reusable Chico bag, perfect to keep in your purse for grocery or shopping trips and washable too!
All in all, the Earth Day celebration was a huge success. Huge is right, there were SO many people there that it was difficult to navigate through the crowds and took a long time to get anything to eat or drink at the vendors. Many people asked if it would be a 2 day event next year and suggested that more side streets be closed off to allow the vendors to spread out a bit more. I had a great time and will remember next year to bring water for the volunteers, sunscreen for me, additional chairs in our makeshift living room and more property flyers to pass out. It was a huge success and the cold Saporo beer that I shared with my husband at Arigato at the end of the day was absolutely delicious…so was the second one!
