Base Camp Bash Debrief

Despite the spring blizzard of 2009, approximately 80 die hard Cottonwood Institute fans strapped on their snow shoes and winter gear to attend the Cottonwood Institute’s 4th Annual Base Camp Bash fundraising event at the Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver. The Earth Day Ale was flowing as everyone got down to business bidding on their favorite silent auction items.

Dave Kagan, from Grand Rapids, MI, attended the event with his son Jeff Kagan, a Boulder resident, Environmental Educator, Cottonwood Institute Instructor, and one mean guitar player. Dave thoroughly enjoyed the night and was a lucky winner of a Cottonwood Institute vest and gift certificate to the Mountain Sun Restaurant and Brewery. Dave had only good things to say about the Bash: “I was very impressed with the people and organization of the event. It was very well put together, educational and laid back. I learned a lot from the slide show presentation about the mission of the Cottonwood Institute and where it is going. There was a nice feeling about the whole event, and I felt a real warmth from Ford and everyone who attended. We had a really good time and enjoyed the whole evening.”

Robbie Knight, from 99.5FM The Mountain helped Emcee the event and really helped make this a fabulous evening. She plugged the silent auction items and really helped highlight the purpose of the Base Camp Bash: to raise money to underwrite the Community Adventure Program in public schools in the Boulder/Denver area and to fund the Jason F. Griffith Scholarship Fund for our 2009 Summer Courses.

After tallying the donations, we ended up just $3,000 short of our fundraising goal. Unfortunately, many people who had planned to attend, could not make it through the blizzard to Denver where the event was held. In the week following the Bash, two anonymous donors stepped up to the plate to offer matching gift challenges up to $3,000 to help us reach our final goal. If you were unable to attend the Bash it not too late to contribute! You can still make a donation by clicking the link to DONATE NOW, or by simply head down to the Wynkoop Brewing Company before the end of April to enjoy a tasty pint of Earth Day Ale.

To check out a slide show of the 2009 Base Camp Bash: Click Here.

Action Project Week Schedule

This quarter students have chosen three different themes for each of their three days in spring action project:

Green Living at Home, The Plight of the Bees, and Local Gardening What is it Good For? TONS!.

Students broke up into focus areas depending on their interest and passion for the subject:

Here is our schedule and our problem statements for our action project week:

Wednesday 29th: Green Living at Home

Did you know that 80% of the energy used for a machine washed load goes to heating the water, and that there is no benefit to using hot water unless it is an all-white load?

It is difficult to imagine how much energy we use , how much one flush really means, or what happens when we turn on a light connected to a coal plant. As such we would like to educate ourselves, our school, and our community about some simple things we can all do to reduce our carbon footprint.
Meet at 9am. Head over to Resource 2000 to volunteer in exchange for fence materials for our garden, and possibly model materials for a “green village.”

We will return to school between 12 and 1. Have lunch.

At 1:30 Ryland Gardner from the Boulder Green Builders Guild will speak with us about green living and building.

Thursday 30th: The Plight of the Bees

Bee populations are rapidly declining throughout the U.S. There are many theories as to why this is happening, (genetically modified crops, rough transportation, use of pesticides herbicides) humans seem to be to blame in many of these scenarios. Roughly one third of our current food supply is pollinated by bees from commercial bee farms. Food like almonds, raspberries, and many others rely on bees. Bees are a keystone species and essential to a thriving ecosystem. We want to educate ourselves and others about the importance of bees and the reason for their disappearance.  One of the ways to help bees is to create habitat for them, we will finish our week by creating a bee garden!

9:00 am meet.

Christina Allen — Bee Keeper and environmental educator from Thorne Ecological Institute will meet with us in the morning to teach us all about bees.

The second part of this day we are going to create a mural all about bees and what’s happening to them, or what we think is happening to them.  We will also start work on our garden which includes a special bee section!

Friday May 1st: Local gardening: what is it good for?  TONS!

A healthy economy, people, and our environment all benefit from a healthy local food system. Currently, the majority of energy used in the US food system (about 80%) goes to processing, packaging, transporting, storing, and preparing food. Produce in the US travels, on average, between 1300-2000 miles from farm to customer. The fact is that we are polluting our planet through our food choices. Truck transportation has largely replace the more energy efficient methods of transporting food by train and boat. This is just part of why it is important to support locally grown agriculture. The food is also fresher, less processed, and overall healthier for humans and the environment. We will create a garden at school to help raise awareness about the benefits of local food and also to help teach others how to start gardens of their own!

Introduction to gardening, why we are doing this, reading packets and activities…

Growing Gardens is coming to help us start our garden at school. This will be the focus all day.

Others will make informational signs for the garden as well as identification signs for plants.

Base Camp Bash Silent Auction Pre-Bidding Has Begun!

The Base Camp Bash is this Friday, April 17, 2009 from 7-10pm at the Wynkoop Brewing Company in downtown Denver and we hope you can attend this amazing event. It is not too late to buy tickets, so for tickets and information, Click Here.

If you cannot attend this year, but you would still like to support us by participating in our fabulous Silent Auction, you can place a pre-bid on any of our silent auction items. Pre-bids must be submitted by 5pm on Thursday, April 16, 2009. Pre-bids will start the bidding at the silent auction at the Base Camp Bash on Friday, April 17, 2009, so if you really want something bid high! To place a bid, please contact Ford Church at 303.447.1076 or Click Here to email your bid.

Here are a few highlights from this year’s Silent Auction:

• Vacation Packages: Fabulous trips including trips to New Orleans, Seattle, Beaver Creek, and wine tasting in California. Bid Now!
• Music and Events: Tickets to The Dead, eTown, festival passes to the 2009 Boulder Adventure Film Festival, and more. Bid Now!
• Outdoor Items: Great outdoor gear including a Mountain Hardwear tent, a SPOT Satellite Messenger tracking device, Survival Kits, and more. Bid Now!
• Restaurants: Great gift certificates to your favorite restaurants in Boulder and Denver, including the Mountain Sun, The Kitchen, Hapa Sushi, Snooze, Fluid Coffee Bar, and more. Bid Now!

We hope to see you at the Bash on Friday! If you have any questions, please contact me via Email or by phone at 303.447.1076.

Thank you so much for all of your support!

What is your Environmental Footprint?

Hey there CAP class. You have a couple of online tasks.

The first is to calculate your environmental footprint by clicking here: Feel free to estimate if you don’t know exact numbers.  Be sure to record your results in your journal.

2. Write a web journal entry in response to the questions below. To write a web journal entry just click on the “comments” section of the corresponding post (i.e. this one.)

QUESTIONS:

1. What were the actions that made your footprint go up or down the most?
2. Are there actions you can take to lower your footprint? If so what are they?
3. Were you surprised by the results why or why not?
4. Feel free to take the quiz a second time, inserting different numbers to see how you could change your results.

Wynkoop’s Earth Day Ale to Support the Cottonwood Institute

Do you want to know a really easy way to support the Cottonwood Institute? For the whole month of April the Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver, CO will be featuring an Earth Day Ale and Wynkoop recently announced that a percentage of every pint sold will benefit the Cottonwood Institute!

According to Ford Church, the Cottonwood Institute’s Founder and Executive Director, “Wynkoop is really walking their talk in terms of environmental sustainability and reducing their environmental footprint. This promotion is another example of how they are also reaching out to the community to support small nonprofits in these challenging economic times to lend a helping hand. We are very appreciative and hope people come down to Wynkoop to enjoy a tasty Earth Day Ale!”

This generous donation will help support our educational programs and the Jason F. Griffith Scholarship Fund, which will help make our Summer Courses more accessible to students during these challenging economic times. This another great reason to join us for our upcoming Base Camp Bash, held at the Wynkoop Brewing Company on Friday, April 17th, 2009, from 7-10 PM. We hope to see you at the Bash, but in the meantime head on down to Wynkoop and enjoy a refreshing Earth Day Ale!

Community Cleanup Day!

Hey, everyone! The City of Boulder is hosting a Community Cleanup Day on Saturday, May 16th. It goes from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., and there’s an ice cream social at Scott Carpenter Park directly after (only go if you volunteered for the morning)!  PLUS, everyone who participates will get a one-day pass to Boulder Reservoir!

-What you’d be doing if you volunteered:
cleaning up Boulder! You’d remove trash and recyclables from various sundry places,plant flowers and pull weeds in/from parks and greenways!

- How to sign up:
You can register, either online or by phone, as an individual or as a group — bring your friends!– by may 13th. For more info, call 303-413-7245.
Also, you choose the location you want to help clean up from the following list, and on-site project leaders will help provide supplies and direction.

Locations to chooose from:
• Andrews Arboretum
• Bear Creek Greenway
• Bear Creek Underpass at Broadway and Table Mesa
• Chautauqua Park
• Columbia Cemetery
• Dry Creek Trail
• Elmer’s Two-Mile Creek Greenway
• Foothills Community Park
• Four Mile Creek Greenway
• Goose Creek Greenway
• Goose Creek Underpass at Foothills
• Harlow Platts Park
• Mount Sanitas Trail
• Scott Carpenter Park
• South Boulder Creek Greenway
• Skunk Creek Greenway
• Skunk Creek Underpass at 27th Way
• Skunk Creek Underpass at Baseline NE side
• Skunk Creek Underpass at Broadway W side
• Wonderland Creek Underpass at 30th & Iris

Visit BoulderParks-Rec.org for a map of these locations

Website: www.BoulderParks-Rec.org

I hope everyone can come!

Have fun,
~ Josie