Although Sinclair Community College isn’t exclusively holding an event for Earth Day, Associate Professor of English Adrienne Cassel encourages students to visit Garden Station during the Earth Fest celebration.
Garden Station, located on Fourth St. and Wayne Ave. in Dayton, welcomes Sinclair students to attend Earth Fest in celebration of Earth Day, on April 20.
“Garden Station started in June of 2008; it was actually a local artist collective,” Lisa Helm, founder and Garden Station manager said. “It was to be a community and garden art park [before turning into Garden Station].”
According to Helm, Garden Station is created by volunteers and donations. They have no staff and no budget.
“The focus is on sustainable living and creative re-use,” Helm said. “We use a lot of recycled materials and community space.”
This year for Earth Fest, there will be workshops and plant sales.
“Our workshops from the farmers market are what expanded,” Helm said. “We had things like homemade cheese, homemade yogurt, home brewing, fermented foods [and] gardening.”
In addition, Helm said the purpose of Garden Station is to help teach people how to be more sustainable so they can rely on themselves instead of buying things they think they need.
“We have a plant and seed sale, we are selling Fedco certified seeds,” she said. “Fruits, vegetables, sunflowers and other things like that.”
Helm believes that education is the key in the Dayton area, because being earth-friendly is not considered the norm.
“It’s just not mainstream in Dayton,” she said. “Just to get more people aware, why they should know more and why they should want to know is the goal.”
All of the workshops are centered toward being hands-on, so those attending can apply what they learn at Earth Fest immediately, so they can take something with them when they leave.
This year, the workshops include: “Juice up your Life!” which gives basics on juicing; “Recycled Paper Beads” that teaches those attending how to recycle paper into beads made for jewelry and décor; “Paper You Can Plant,” where learning how to make paper for writing that can also be planted in the ground to grow wildflowers is shown;
“What you need to go Solar,” where basic principles of solar technology is discussed, along with many more.
“With knowledge, we can collectively decrease our carbon footprint and make the whole area [more] resilient,” Helm said. “People will be able to take care of themselves better by growing their own food, making their own food or building natural sustainable buildings.”
Earth Fest at Garden Station is open to everyone in the area.
“It’s open to everyone to go a shade greener and learn something,” she said.
For more information on The Garden Station, how to volunteer or give donations, visit daytongardenstation.org.