Saturday was a particularly green day for me. In the morning I attended a hands-on class on identifying wild flowers at Fox Island County Park. This was the second half of a related course and part of our Indiana Master Naturalist program. Using our field guidebooks and coding I learned that I was not at all adept at identifying flowers. In fact it took me an average of 20 minutes, after looking at leaves, petals, and color, to correctly identify a flower. I need a lot more practice.
 
In the afternoon I attend Trillium Fest at L.C. Nature Park. This is the preserve's one year anniversary. L.C. Nature Park is a 200 acre preserve that strives for nature restoration. To that end they have a herd of 24 bison and a herd of 19 elk. The land includes  ponds, wetlands, and restored tall grass prairie.
 
However, this was the first Trillium Fest, and I was there to see the distinctive white flowers. The hike did not disappoint. The trail went past the fields that were home to the bison and the wooded area the elk hid in. On the outskirts were wetlands and fields but in the center was woods with a lush ground cover of trillium. It was beautiful.
 
As I hiked I kept bumping into people I knew. Visitors and volunteers were there from Eagle Marsh, Fox Island, the Master Naturalist program, the DNR, and the county parks. The spring wildflowers were in bloom, the trees were sprouting greenery, and the visitors were happy greenies. 
 
The stations were set up to educate visitors of all ages about the park, the creatures that lived there, and to entertain. The Mills Education Center had displays about the animals that called L.C. home. You could also buy t-shirts, caps, and look at nature related art. There were numerous activity tables around the lake, and they were always sites of happy activity. John Gevers volunteered at a nature centered selfie-station. I should have taken his selfie.
 
Soarin’Hawk had a presentation about their raptors and it was very popular. I was fond of Jefferson, their bald eagle. Finally, there were the information tables that were staffed by so many familiar faces. The tables included Little River Wetland Project, ACRES Land Trust, DNR, and Purdue’s Environmental Resource Center.  I look forward to booking a tour of the preserve. I want to take photos of the two herds and I want to hear more about the history of the land. This was my first visit to L.C. Nature Park, it will not be my last.

Today marks the third day of observing Earth Day in Fort Wayne Indiana. I knew the day was different from the very start. As I drove to Eagle Marsh to volunteer, I noticed that Engle Road had blockades and the sheriff department was stopping and directing cars. I was guided through the blockades and then parked in the middle of Engle Road, clearly this was going to be a big event.

I walked to the barn and met the other volunteers. We spent the next three hours setting up tables, moving chairs, putting up six canopies and then taking them down because of the wind. We brought the educational materials to the stations. Vendors arrived and set up their tables and food trucks arrived and started up their kitchens.

For the next two shifts I was part of the education stations. My table and the table next to me educated children on bird beak adaptions. Children could use tweezers to pull rice out of bark as if they were woodpeckers. They could spear jelly fish candies as if they were heron. Basters taking water out of flower vase illustrated hummingbirds. Fish tank strainers gathering floating tea from water helped children understand how ducks gathered food through filtration. Finally there was a carnivore display. The children were able to use scissors to cut playdough off sticks as if they were hawks, eagles or owls pulling meat off a bone. Other tables introduced children to bats, soil, and dirt seed bombs. All together there were over ten stations.

A large tent hosted the Soarin’Hawk Raptor Rehabilitation Center show. Inside the barn was a timeline of the history of Eagle Mash and the Little River Wetlands Project. There was also a showing of a new documentary on LRWP.

Many visitors had never been to Eagle Marsh. Until today they did not know the largest inland wetland restoration in the nation was home to over 250 different species of bird. They did not know it was the home to deer, otter, mink, muskrat, and beaver. They were offered guided hikes by Indiana Master Naturalists and they walked the continental divide. This was a special day and that included a ribbon-cutting and dedication of a new floating trail.

Many other agencies, preserves, and missions had booths. These included Save the Maumee, Science Central, ACRES Land Trust,   and L.V. Nature Park.  Assistant professor Joel Portius of Goshen College presented on Sustainability and Environmental Education. There were 25 vendors present. They sold upcycled clothes, eco-friendly cleaning detergents, environmentally themed clothes and art, and soy candles. There was a life size eagle nest and a nature mural that participants could help paint.

All day visitors hiked the woods, the wetlands, and visited the stations. As if to highlight a perfect day the rain poured down and the wind howled, shortly after the event ended. This was an incredible Earth Day Weekend. It highlighted what we need to treasure and it reminded us to care for our planet.

Today was a very busy day as Fort Wayne observed Earth Day. I attended the WE ARE THE EARTH: Environmental Justice: A Moral Imperative (Global, National, Local) conference at Plymouth Congregational Church. The conference was sponsored by the Indiana Center for Middle East Peace. The half-day conference was full of information, networking, and inspiration.

The first keynote speaker was Malik Kenyatta Yakini, a co-founder of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. He did not hold back. He is anti-capitalist. He referred to Anthony Wayne as a criminal. He said that if we want to heal the earth then we needed to end colonialism and our extracting mentality. He stated that one of the problems was that the Abrahamic religions were interpreted as called to dominate the earth. Instead he said we are here to participate in this matrix of life and if we do not get the connections with other lives (plants and animals) we will not survive. He pointed out that our consumption of eating meat in the West was connected to class and affluence and that land used to raise cows, hogs, and chickens would be more productive growing crops.

He pointed out that our current industrial food system has led to problems with deforestation, pesticides (with over 120 dead zones), packaging and micro-plastics, and loss of top soil.
Malik was articulate. He did a dance of using data, history, and story-telling to make his points. Because of this dance he was able to say things in a way that allowed his audience to hear as he talked about white supremacy, patriarchy, and need to be in touch with the Divine Feminine if we are to move to healing and restoration. I hope to visit his community gardens in Detroit, and I hope to learn more from him.

There were several break-out sessions.  Kathryn Gwiazdon, J.D., Esq., community activist Cassandra Cannon, and Rev. Kimberly Koczan-Flory presented on the Indiana Poor People’s Campaign. This was a well-attended talk with a very active audience. The speakers talked about addressing poverty, militarism, systematic racism, destruction of habitat, and the need for a moral revival. They talked about their work internationally, nationally, and locally in Fort Wayne and in Gary Indiana.

Two of the breakout sessions were about nature and habitat. These included the Little Rivers Wetland Project presented by Betsy Yanokowiak and the Sierra Club presented by David Van Gilder. Both sounded interesting but I could only attend two of the sessions.

The last break-out session was MIDWEST BUILDING DECARBINIZATION and FAITH IN PLACE presented by Rev. Dr. Junius B. Pressey. There we learned about replacing carbon power sources with renewables. We learned about options for home owners and renters. We learned about the challenges of achieving this important goal if you were poor. We left the talk armed with handouts and ideas. It was a practical talk.

The final keynote speaker was Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. She is the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. She connected her/out work with the mission of Martin Luther King. She pointed out that 140 million American live in poverty. 8 million American fell into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic. She pointed out that during the same time billionaires have become significantly wealthier. She called us to action. She called us to participate in a moral revival that connects the environment, each other, and social justice together. She called on us to participate oin the Poor People’s Campaign march on Washington June 18.

This was a full, inspiring, half-day conference. 

I hope your communities are marking Earth Day in significant ways. Fort Wayne has an entire weekend of events planned from cleanup and tree planting at Save Maumee, to documentary films at Beacon Heights Church of the Brethren. Saturday there will be a conference at Plymouth Congregational Church. Sunday will be the big Earth Day event at Eagle Marsh.

So today I drove to New Haven to see just what Save Maumee was all about. The organization has been around for years and has focused on service projects that work toward restoring the health of the Maumee River. They received a land donation of 58 acres and now focus on the restoration of that land. The land is surrounded by water on three sides, the river, and a ditch. To the east is a farm with sheep. That is pretty cool when you realize you can look across the street and the city is right in front of you. To the west is an open field. They are using this as an incubator farm. Members of the Burmese refugee community use the land to learn to farm/garden North American vegetables.

Volunteers, community members, and the curious arrived to hike and to serve. A student from Purdue Fort Wayne was busy planting trees. Others were cleaning up the trails. Some were removing invasive plants and making room for elderberry, pecan, and black oak trees.
The work will continue on Saturday and will be joined by Heartland Community Seed Swap.

The pandemic has dampened my community involvement. After two years it was good to see Lauren Conklin, a Save Maumee vice president. Lauren was doing what she always does, making a difference. 

​I am not really ready to launch this website or blog. There is still much to be done in terms of structure, planning, and editing. However, tomorrow is Earth Day and that is the appropriate day to launch this site and my new journey. On April 22, 1970 I was a sophomore in high school in Chicago. I cut school that day. That was actually the only day I cut school. I took the CTA to the Civic Center Plaza (now the Daley Center) and along with thousands of other concerned citizens rallied for the earth. We were moved by the book Silent Spring that talked of a world without wildlife. The air was rusty brown, phosphates clogged the rivers, and there was no Clean Air or Clean Water Acts to protect earth.

During my high school years I worked as a stock boy at Saxon Paints. I remember the two plastics aisles. They were important because they had one thing in common, all of the products were made of plastic. This included statues, shelving, furniture, curtains, and frames. I also worked in the tool and hardware aisles. They were influenced by the beginnings of globalization. The tools were purchased by the company not for their precision or durability but rather by their weight.  These two areas would influence the environment for years to come. Petrol-based disposable products, often one time use and cheap imported products would shape our landscape and pollute our land, air, and waterways.

However, it was not all doom and gloom. The air and waterways did get cleaner. People did learn to recycle. Lead was removed from gas. DDT was removed from pesticides and today many of us see the fruits of that, we see American Bald Eagles. The efforts were not partisan. It was President Nixon who signed into law the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The EPA was created. We have had successes and yet we face what appears to be unsurmountable challenges if we are to stop and eventually reverse climate change.

That April in 1970 I witnessed peoples of differing generations, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and politics come together to serve the common good. I must believe we are still capable of acting in the common interest and not just be motivated by self-interest.

So today, one day short of 52 years since that first Earth Day I launch this modest platform that is website, blog, and connected to social media. I launch it to inspire me and remind me of all the little things people are doing that will make a difference. I launch it to remind me of the change in attitudes and worldviews that are motivating change. I launch it to remind myself I do not have the luxury of giving up.

I hope that many of you will join me in this journey. I do not want you to simply joining me as a reader. Rather I hope many of you will become contributors of stories, interviews, photographs, videos, and scientific, artistic, religious, and personal stories of motivation.

The Facebook group, A Little Greener Everyday will serve to post stories and events. This website will become a resources center or archive. The blog will be where I share my journey that I am embarking on, a journey that I hope includes many of you.