In this companion piece to our email newsletter (not a subscriber yet? Subscribe here), I’ll share highlights from Earth Month, and share a glimpse on what we have coming up in May. Also, since our newsletter has been getting flagged as spam by some of our subscribers, we’ve limited the clickable links in the newsletter and instead you’ll find them in this article. The Flying Pig is this weekend, so time is running out to buy Piggest Raffle Ever raffle tickets to support Waste-Free Dayton. Tickets are $5 each, and you’ll have a chance to win the grand prize of $10,000 or 2nd prize of $5,000. (The 3rd prize is pretty cool too!). We keep 100% of the proceeds from our ticket sales. You can purchase tickets here: https://piggestraffleever.com. Don’t forget to select Waste-Free Dayton as the charity. Winners drawn on Sunday, May 3rd.

Earth Month Recap

Litter Cleanups

Starting with our litter cleanups, we did 5 in April, bringing us to 74 over the history of our organization (back to March 2021 when the first cleanup took place). On Saturday, April 4th, we did a cleanup with CISV Midwest Ohio at 2nd Street Market, coinciding with the Earth DayTON kickoff event. On Earth Day, we had 3 litter cleanups, 2 of them with the City of Kettering, and the last one was a plogging event partnering with BBRC starting at Riverscape and focused on the paths along the river. Finally, last Saturday, we participated in the Living City Project, and hosted a cleanup site in the Burkhardt neighborhood.

Here’s a short video recap of our Earth Day cleanups: https://youtube.com/shorts/NGlxNkO_9SI?si=m_9Uy-7i0EnICruy

Coffee Chat

Since April was also Native Plant Month, Charlie, one of our board members and the owner of Tadmor Greenes, hosted our April coffee chat, and invited friends Brooke and Aubrey from Meadowsweet Ecological Landscapes. We had a great turnout at Adelaide’s Wholesome Baked in St. Anne’s Hill. Great pasties, and sustainable packaging and practices!

Panel Talks, Presentations, Tabling

I was invited to participate in a panel talk hosted by B-W Greenway on Recycling and Food Waste. For their 23rd Community Chautauqua, panelists included representives from Rumpke, Clark County Solid Waste, the Fairborn Environmental Advisory Board, Jen from Access to Excess, and Clara from The Foodbank. There was a lot of great discussion that coudl have continued long into the night. We will share the video when B-W Greenway publishes it.

Kicking off the week of Earth Day, we partnered with quantum foam studios for the latest installment of their Everything from Nothing conversation series at Joui Wine. Along with myself, the panel consisted of Meg Maloney, City of Dayton Sustainability Manager, Jack Rees, Five Rivers MetroParks Sustainability Manager, and Cassie Austin, Founder of Gem City Reuse.

I also delivered two presentations during the month, the first at Westminster Presbyterian Church for their Earth Stewardship Sunday, and the second at Wright Memorial Library in Oakwood earlier this week.

Finally, for this category, we had three tabling events. We were at the Earth DayTON kick off mentioned earlier. We shared a table with Tadmor Greenes at the Tree Love event at Eudora Brewing. And this week, we had a table at the Miami Valley School’s Earth Day event. It was our 3rd year participating in the MVS event, and this year we did something a little different by inviting students to take a short survey on sustainabilty. I’m looking forward to sharing the results next week.

Dayton Sustainability Luncheon

There hadn’t been a Dayton regional sustainability luncheon since late last year, so it was great to gather again at Sinclair on April 14th to hear several great PK-style presentations, along with the usual networking, and a unique live graphic recording of the event by Jennie Hemptead of Draw on Purpose. This was really cool!

In the Media

We started out the month with my appearance on Good Day Dayton to preview Earth Month. This was my first time on with the new host, Lydia Bice, who took over for the first host, friend to many organizations, and member of our volunteer team, Tej. Watch the clip here: https://dayton247now.com/good-day-dayton/waste-free-dayton-previews-upcoming-earth-month-events-on-good-day-dayton

At the Earth DayTON kickoff, I was interviewed by WDTN. Watch the report here: https://youtu.be/zL5ZoPcLyKg?si=fh1PUJv0toyRReWn

On Earth Day, I joined Lydia of Good Day Dayton again for several live shots in the morning at Riverscape to preview our Earth Day events.

And on social media, The Silos created a video with us to promote the plogging cleanup and the special Earth Day drink at the Silos. https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXO8AEujYgD/

May Preview

With our busiest Earth Month ever, we’re going to slow down a bit in May to allow for some recovery. We will still have our monthly coffee chat and litter cleanup though.

May Coffee Chat - Friday, May 15, 10 am, Warehouse 4 in Vandalia. Email info@wastefreedayton.org to RSVP.

May Litter Cleanup - Friday, May 15, 4:30-6:30 pm, State Farm Park in Kettering, in partnership with City of Kettering and Little Miami Watershed Network. Signup to volunteer through the City of Kettering SignupGenius. Note, there is also a cleanup at the same location in June.

In the Community

One of the students at Miami Valley School, a senior who has been one of the Earth Day event organizers the last 3 years, is running a summer day camp for 4th - 8th graders at Miami Valley School from June 15th through 19th. You don’t have to be a student at MVS to attend. For more information, email summercamp@mvschool.com, call 937-434-4444, or visit https://www.miamivalleyschool.org/student-life/summer-camp to find more information about this camp and others taking place at MVS.

Are you aware of anything else in the community that we should highlight in our newsletter or next blog post? Email us at info@wastefreedayton.org.

Thank you for reading!

Earth Month Recap, a Look Ahead