CT Green Scene

Are you a Parent? Are you Awake?

by Heather Burns

I only needed to open the door a few days ago to my child's gymnasium and take one whiff of the newly polished floor to be reminded of how much work still needs to be done to create awareness, turn inaction into action and create real change when it comes to the toxic environment our children are exposed to.

And while I may not be able to instantly control what school administrators put on floors, on the lunch menu, or on the school yards - I can create change to the degree I feel comfortable, have time for or feel compelled.

Healthy Child, Healthy World is a stand up organization helping keep "conscious" parents like me well informed so I can make sound choices on behalf of my children.

Getting Pinched for Cash: The Canton Volunteer Firefighters' Lobsterfest '09

by: James Simpkins

I don’t really like lobster. Being a chef, this makes me somewhat of a pariah among colleagues as lobster is known as a dish in the upper echelon of gourmet cooking. But almost everyone I know has that one little ‘thing’ about what they put-or won’t put- in their mouths. Mine’s lobster. Now that I think about it, it’s just the tail I don’t care for. If I could just order the claws, I would not only be content, I’d be a fan! But in 100% of my dining experiences that has never been an option. I was hoping (to no avail) my lucky break would come this past weekend in Canton, CT where the 29th annual Canton Volunteer Firefighters’ Lobsterfest ‘09 kicked off on Friday, August 14th.

A big fund-raiser for the station, I was told originally it was “someone’s hare-brained idea” that turned into a smashing success. Apparently its current incarnation is a lot better executed, however; the joke around the station is that it’s taken all twenty nine years to figure out how to do it efficiently. After seeing the production first-hand, it is no joke. Here are just the mainstays of what they ordered this year:

·        5,000 wild-caught lobsters from Maine & Massachusetts

·        100+ bushels of local sweet corn (from The Pickin’ Patch in Avon, CT)

·        15 ½ barrels of Budweiser beer (that’s about 2500 bottles)

…and LOTS of chowda to go with it. Sadly, this was concentrated clam chowder from SYSCO and the only culinary snafu of the event. I wondered, though, of the 5,000 lobsters that were ordered, how many do they actually use?

All of them.

The guys at the firehouse told me that in the last four years they haven’t had a single lobster leftover—and they ordered 4,000 each year. This time around, determined to grow their numbers and break that glass ceiling, they added another 1,000 and crossed their fingers. The event starts Friday night, then all day Saturday, and from 9am Sunday until they’re gone. With 1500 lobsters sold on Friday night alone (just four hours), it was no contest.

Edible School Gardens

by Eileen Weber

We have an epidemic. No, it doesn’t involve an incurable virus or Dustin Hoffman in a Hazmat suit à la Outbreak. However, it does involve kids, their parents, and the schools they attend.

Edible school gardens are growing at a rapid pace. Increasingly, school districts are making the gardens part of their curriculum. The Edible School Gardens Workshop at the Unitarian Church in Westport, sponsored in part by the Westport Green Village Initiative in partnership with Amy Kalafa, founder of Two Angry Moms, featured an expert panel of school garden organizers. With a room filled almost to capacity this morning, parents, farmers, gardeners, and school officials alike listened intently about how to start one in their own school system.

Dorothy Mullen, founder of the Riverside Elementary School gardens in Princeton, NJ, discussed how she got the project underway in her district. Only a few weeks post-9/11 in November 2001, she wanted to make a change in the school lunch system by introducing fresh food.

She noted how nutrition positively or negatively affects the body. “The brain is the most sensitive organ to poor nutrition,” she said. At the very least, kids can have a loss in concentration that prevents learning. “When the brain is out fuel,” she said, “we can’t learn correctly.”

Mullen, who is also an addiction counselor, said she started small by taking kids on a walking tour to her backyard garden. Then, the concept grew. She wanted to take it to the school. This was one way to instill the benefits of nutrition. She pointed out that, with a garden, there is a teaching opportunity for other subjects: science, math, food and nutrition, and art. From an environmental perspective, conservation in composting and water usage is a valuable lesson as well.

The Winner’s Cup Is Green

by Eileen Weber

For the month of January, three towns in Fairfield County are having a little friendly competition to see which one is the most energy conscious. According to an article dated January 2nd in The Hour, Westport, Wilton, and Weston have taken up the “Green Cup Challenge” initiated by the Wilton Energy Commission and sponsored by Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P). The point of the competition, which will end on January 31st, is to raise awareness of exactly how environmentally conscious their communities are.

The Wilton Energy Commission hosted an open meeting looking to kick start this initiative and a Wilton high school student came to the rescue. Shwetha Rahguraman along with fellow student Kathryn Saphire “took the bull by the horns” and got the ball rolling.

An 11-question survey was formed and sent out to homes and businesses. A few of the questions from the survey, which is also available online, were “Do you own vehicles that get over 30mpg?” and “Do more than a quarter of the lights in your household use compact fluorescent bulbs?”

Points are awarded to how these questions are answered. CL&P will judge the final responses and award a “green” cup to the winning town. As of today, there are 228 participants signed up to take part in the competition.

Mitchell Reichgut, a member of the energy commission, said it’s not about winning the cup. “All of us who are involved in it,” Reichgut was quoted in The Hour as saying, “really feel like it’s a really important project and an important issue.”