Five projects

We've decided to focus on five projects: two large ones and three smaller ones.
The two main projects will be education in our community and raising awareness about the farmers' market and eating local food. The three smaller projects, which will require hands-on work, will be invasive species removal days, clean-up days, and making posters/brochures for you, our members, to display at things like garage sales. If you're interested in another project, let us know and we can try to work on it with you. These five projects seemed to be the most effective, low-cost way of keeping Clifton Park green.

1) Education can include teaching kids/families how to garden (or trying to work with http://www.cdcg.org/, a community garden group), getting forums, educating the public, and having speakers. We have a couple different places we could teach kids: girl scout/boy scout troops, day camps, and school (if it's before they get out, obviously). Our goal is to have at least one speaker a month- so we have to get started on our first one asap. Any ideas on who could be our first speaker? They can cover any relevant topic: green building, consumer choices, town policies, ways to save money, etc.

2) Farmers' markets are already in the area, but it would be great if we could get people to realize that buying locally is important by helping the region's value and economy. http://www.saratogafarms.com/ is a cool place to check out. There's a farmers' market at the St George's Church (across from Shen) starting around July. We can help publicize that one and help it out.

3) Garage sales are starting up, and it would be cool if we could set up material to display. You guys can make a poster about what environmental issues you're interested in and show people a list of what they can do to improve the area. Theoretically we could encourage people to plant native trees this way (instead of my original idea of having members go door-to-door). Any other ideas on what we can do in this way?

4) Clean up day- need to contact landowners first/town, but since other groups have done this before, I don't think it's too hard.

5) Invasive species removal day- this seems harder than the clean-up day, but it's more substantial. The Nature Conservancy deals with invasive species, and I've contacted them about us helping them. It seems like it should work out, especially if the Nature Conservancy already has resources for us to use (tools, seeds, permission for those areas). Ideally our group would continue after we leave Clifton Park, and this can be come a regular thing.


We're still having issues trying to figure out where to have weekly meetings. We're trying to get it set up at the library, but it hasn't been settled yet. Regardless, we will have a meeting- somewhere- May 24th (time still unknown). I think getting bumper stickers is an awesome idea, so let me know if you're interested in one so I can start ordering.

Also! Both Price Chopper and Hannaford offer paper towels and toilet paper used from recycled paper, not trees. Price Chopper will credit you 3 cents per bag you bring back instead of a new bag, and Hannaford will credit you 5 cents per cloth bag and 2 cents per plastic bag.