Portland Observatory on the Hill
By Carol McCracken (Post # 759)
On Friday, April 22nd nearly thirty orgnizations will participate in Portland’s Urban Earth Day Celebration to be held at Monument Square from 11 am – 6 pm., in downtown Portland. The event brings together many of Portland’s environmental and non-profit organizations, artists, sustainable businesses and residents. It will give the public an opportunity to learn about local efforts to promote the city’s green economy and improve Portland’s urban environment.
The celebration will feature local, organic food, compost demonstrations, agricultural presentations, seed/sapplng give-aways, dance performances, art, street musicans, face painting and much more. The event offers fun, free activities for all ages. Wolfe’s Neck Farm will showcase local agricultural and environmental education activities for youth including displaying some of their farm animals. The Department of Public Services will provide information on ways residents can prevent stormwater pollution, an important environmental effort to improve the health of the city’s natural waterways.
“We will celebrate earth day and work harder to defend our environment this year because of our Governor’s efforts to rollback environmental protections,” said City Councilor David Marshall.
“This year, Earth Day in Maine takes on special significance as we face dozens of attempts to rollback protections for our air, waters and natural areas. Today we honor the power of Maine citizens, who stand up for our environment year after year, in Washington, in August and in local communities. We must keep pushing forward to protect the Maine we love,” said Lisa Pohlmann, executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine.
In an email to MHN.com, Nathaniel F. Meyer, a field associate with Portland’s Environment Maine said of the Celebration: “Over the last few months, we’ve seen Governor LePage put forward a host of extreme proposals to roll back our core environmental protections and it has become clearer than ever that the Governor doesn’t share Maine’s values of protecting our environment and our public health. On this Earth Day, we have an opportunity to celebrate the thousands upon thousands of Mainers who have stood up for these values. That said, our work is surely not done and we need to continue to urge our legislators to protect the Maine we all love by opposing environmental rollbacks. Happy Earth Day!
EDITOR’S NOTE: For information on Call for Vendors for 2012, please visit Post # 1,015, dated April 4, 2012.