Richmond Hill Students Ready to Make Change

November 2, 2010

Richmond Hill Students in the Field (Photo: Evergreen)

Jennifer Bronfenbrener, Julia Kostin, Aryan Heidari and Aline Nguyen are students at Alexander Mackenzie Secondary School who have been coming out regularly this season to Phyllis Rawlinson Park in Richmond Hill to plant trees, support the community tree nursery and help with the annual Harvest Festival.  They are dedicated, enthusiastic young people who inspire others to make a difference in their world.  We talked to them recently about their volunteer experience:

What do you like about volunteering: We can directly help the environment, benefit the community and the town we live in while having a great time doing it!

Memories: We’ve especially enjoyed helping at the Harvest Festival and getting more students from our school to get involved.  The fresh bean salad we made was a big hit too.  We were also amazed at the transformation at the tree nursery on one stewardship day this year.

Why volunteer: We love to plant trees, reduce our ecological footprint and help save the environment.  It’s great to take action.

When you’re not volunteering: We’re in our last years of high school, and find time to hang out with friends and play sports.

Comments Off | Volunteer | Permalink
Posted by Christine from Volunteering

Tree Nursery Grows Up

October 29, 2010

Phyllis Rawlinson Community Tree Nursery (Photo: Evergreen)

The Phyllis Rawlinson Park Tree Nursery is growing up! This fall we propagated more than 1,200 coniferous seeds. Volunteers and community groups helped plant the trees in our newly constructed wooden beds, which were build by Evergreen Youth Interns this past summer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments Off | Stewardship and Planting | Permalink
Posted by Kim from Common Grounds

Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft – Taking it Out on Scotch Broom

October 27, 2010
Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft (Photo: Sean Aldcroft)

Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft (Photo: Sean Aldcroft)

Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft have been steady stewardship volunteers for Evergreen’s Iona Beach Regional Park Working Group, working hard to restore sensitive dune habitats every third Saturday of the month. They’ve also been active in our super elite task force project, protecting what is left of the streambank lupine colonies remaining in the Lower Mainland.

Why do they volunteer to green their city? Jen and Sean get tremendous satisfaction out of getting involved and being connected to the local habitat. There’s a real sense of ownership to clean out invasive species taking over our regional parks! Plus a weed wrench is a great way to get out latent aggression.

Their highlight of volunteering with Evergreen? Both said their ongoing highlight of volunteering with Evergreen has been efficiently doing away with what seems like acres of invasive Scotch broom at Iona Beach Regional Park. There’s a strange satisfaction in uprooting Scotch Broom that is taller than you are!

What about their other lives? Sean is the elementary school teacher parents either hope or fear their child will receive and Jen works to improve the environmental footprint of YVR.

Comments Off | Vancouver, Volunteer | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Serviceberry: The Perfect Shrub

October 27, 2010

Serviceberry (Photographer: Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center)

A showy shrub throughout the year, Amelanchier alnifolia, known by many other names is a terrific addition to the urban garden.  Found in Canada from Quebec westward to BC and even in the Northwest Territories, serviceberry (Saskatoon berry) has white flowers in spring, edible berries in June and showy foliage in the fall.  Adaptable to part shade, drought and a variety of soil types and attractive to wildlife what gardener wouldn’t want one?  Find out more about Serviceberry and other native shrubs on our native plant database.

3 Comments | Gardening, Native Species | Permalink
Posted by Christine from Volunteering

Vine Maple: a Native Tree We Love

October 22, 2010
Vibrant leaves of a vine maple in the fall. (Photo: Copyright Kevin deBoer Copyright @ E-Flora BC)

Vibrant leaves of a vine maple in the fall. (Photo: Copyright Kevin deBoer Copyright @ E-Flora BC)

Purple, pink or cream flowers adorn the branches of the vine maple in the spring, only to make way for vibrant leaves in the fall. Acer circinatum, as it is scientifically known, is a small species of maple tree, growing to only 7 meters in height in most cases. Native to western North America, including British Columbia, vine maples have been used in variety of traditional ways by Coastal Aboriginal people. For example, the flexible branches were often used for framing fishing nets, snowshoes and cradles, and the bark of the roots were also used to make tea for colds.

Preferring moist and shaded environments, vine maples are often part of the forest understory in many urban parks and elsewhere in the province and look stunning in both the front and backyards of urban homes. Keep a look out for their bright red leaves this fall and the flower clusters that will replace them in the spring.

Lean more about vine maples and other native trees from Evergreen’s Native Plant Database.

Comments Off | Native Species, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Technology, Health and the Environment Converge at T.H.E. Series Launch

October 21, 2010

Don Tapscott takes the stage. (Photo: Cam Collyer)

In the early morning darkness I rode my bike to Evergreen Brick Works for the kickoff session of T.H.E. Series.  Author Don Tapscott, Dr. Mike Evans and Geoff Cape took the stage just after 7:30 am to discuss how technology, health and the environment are collaborating to meet societal challenges on a global scale.

The debate got off to a great start when the moderator made the provocative statement that “technology is evil.”  Here are some highlights:

  • Don shared examples from his new book how the Internet is a platform for inexpensive collaboration to do things like deliver humanitarian aid, like users on the Kenyan-born Ushahidi network who used text messages to triangulate the location of a young girl buried in the rubble following Haiti’s Earthquake.
  • Dr. Evan talked about how 80 per cent of health solutions are happening at home and how technology is helping our current health system adapt to address health care holistically.  He demonstrated how personal stories are more effective tools for building awareness than a pamphlet by playing an emotional video from a mother battling breast cancer talking about helping her children cope with her terminal illness.
  • Geoff said the real issue with moving the needle on sustainability is through empowering individuals and organizations to see the upside of changing their behavior and going above simply asking them to donate money to a cause.

Stayed tuned, T.H.E. Series aims to host 4-6 breakfast sessions in 2011 attracting internationally renowned experts to help herald in the green economy and both teach and learn from Canadians at the cutting edge of the green economy.

Comments Off | Events, Evergreen Brick Works | Permalink
Posted by Nate from Public Relations

New Partnerships Tackle Old Problems

October 18, 2010

 

JVS team at St. Paul's Catholic School. (Photo: Anne Dabrowski)

 

Looking back, I think one of Learning Grounds’ most important accomplishments this summer was a small-scale idea that had a big impact. We were able to tackle one of the largest issues in school ground greening: summer maintenance.

So often we hear from schools who have a beautiful garden, but no one to tend it over the summer months when maintenance is needed. Many times the survival of school gardens falls on the shoulders of one or two dedicated teachers who take it on because there is simply no one else available. And while some schools are able to organize family garden teams over the summer, many schools are left without staff and without options for summer garden maintenance. But this summer, we were lucky enough to be able to create a partnership–the first of its kind in Toronto–that not only ensured three school gardens survived the summer, but also provided much-needed greening opportunities to community members.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments Off | Gardening, In the Field, School Ground Greening | Permalink
Posted by Anne from Learning Grounds

Register for the All Hands in the Dirt Forum, November 12-13

October 14, 2010

Strengthening children’s connection to nature is a vital part of Evergreen’s mission. As one ten-year old boy from Regent Park stated, when leaving Evergreen Brick Works by schoolbus, “I have no outside at my house.” Within 3 km of Evergreen Brick Works in downtown Toronto, there are 10,000 children without any “outside” at their homes.

 

Walking through the trails at Evergreen's Green City Adventure Camp (Photo: Mike Derblich)

 

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments Off | Events, School Ground Greening | Permalink
Posted by Sarah from Learning Grounds

Hope Builders Come in all Sorts of Sizes

October 13, 2010

 

Students on their way to changing the world. (Photo: Sylvie Lapointe)

 

Have you ever been inspired by a teacher to do, say and make something different of the world?  Québec teacher, Dominique Leduc, wants to do just that and doesn’t just see his elementary class as children, but rather as people who can make a difference.

Evergreen is proud to support the documentary “Hope Builders” directed by Fernand Dansereau, where Leduc takes his Grade 6 class through a process of learning that identifies, analyzes and resolves a problem.  He believes that children can be critical thinkers and his experimental teaching method and belief in the intelligence of children is going to have results.  Hope Builders is a fascinating testament to alternative methods of creating change and inspires all of us to act consciously in the future.

The documentary will be shown on Saturday, October 16 at 11 am at Al Green Theatre and is part of Planet in Focus: an international environmental film and video festival based in Toronto that opens today.

Comments Off | Events, Toronto | Permalink
Posted by Nate from Public Relations

Watch Our Video and Jack Johnson’s Charity Will Donate $1 Per View!

October 13, 2010

 

Evergreen and Jack Johnson at the Village Green

Evergreen staff Adrien, Allison and Andrew (l. to r.) with Jack Johnson at the Village Green (photo: Evergreen)

 

Music lovers at heart, Evergreen was thrilled to recently participate in Jack Johnson’s All At Once Village Green, designed to engage fans with the work of local environmental not-for-profits. As part of our fundraising initiative at the concert, we raffled off a surfboard, snowboard and autographed guitar to three lucky concert-goers and raised $2,130 of our $2,500 fundraising goal!

The Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation will be matching every dollar raised by Evergreen before October 16, 2010, up to $2,500. With your help, we can raise the remaining $370 of our fundraising goal, allowing us to bring people together to make our communities better places to live. All you need to do is watch our 2010 Non-Profit Video, and the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation will donate $1 per complete viewing. Time is running out!

A special thanks to Hugh Nichols, West Coast Music, Thriller Shop and Ark Surfboards for their generous donation of time and raffle items!

Comments Off | Vancouver, Video | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.