Tuesday, April 13, 2010

May Meeting Announcement: Cleaning & Greening at Home

On Tuesday, May 4, Cindy Olson, V.P. of Eco-Coach, Inc. will speak to us about Cleaning & Greening at Home: Creating a Non-Toxic Environment for Your Family. Cindy will talk about how our daily activities impact our health and the environment (and our wallets!), how we can clean our homes in a non-toxic way, and how we can identify key contributors to indoor air pollution. Cindy will provide information and resources to help us create less polluted and toxic indoor environments for our families!

Cindy Olson is the V.P. of Eco-Coach and, among other responsibilities, she educates clients and assists them in directing, implementing, and documenting the best sustainable practices for the new economy at the business and residential level. From designing eco-communities & creating community gardens to financial planning on Wall Street, Cindy has a kaleidoscopic wealth of experience that connects with her breadth of knowledge and interests. Cindy has created and facilitates the eco-voyager and eco-auditor curriculum. Cindy also has helped to create the on-line Green Jobs Workbook, to be released in early 2010. Cindy believes that if each of us takes one small step to make our community greener, we create big changes for our planet. As the organizer of Extreme Green Neighborhood Makeover for a Carbon Free DC, she is helping many households lower their impact.

Our "Cleaning & Greening at Home" meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 4 from 6:30-8:30 at the Cleveland Park Public Library, 3310 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008. There is street parking in Cleveland Park, and the library is also metro accessible through the Cleveland Park/Red Line stop.

April Meeting Recap: Organic Gardening

On Tuesday, April 6, Mitch Baker from American Plant spoke to us about organic gardening in the DC area. Mitch began by discussing the origins of chemical products in our garden, noting that before 1947 all gardening was basically organic. He shared information with us on the best and most productive soil to use for container gardening, and how to amend soil in the ground to best support healthy, productive plants. Mitch also discussed composting, organic fertilizers and pest control, and gave specific recommendations for growing plants such as tomatoes in the DC area. Thank you Mitch for a very informative and helpful talk as we move into the planting season!

Notes from the meeting will be available to members who were not able to join us!