Earth Day is April 22nd!

Want some ideas about how to use Earth Day (April 22) projects as community-building events – events that can be pulled off despite COVID-19 restrictions? Sure you do! It’s spring, the weather is wonderful, and people are anxious to have some kind of activity that doesn’t involve a Zoom meeting. And if that idea is also friendly to the earth, hey, it’s a win all around.

Our top three suggestions:

Hire a shredding van to park on the property for several hours and allow residents to bring in their accumulated shredding. A file drawer of old tax papers (or old love letters) defies the capability of those home office shredders. Having free, mass shredding on-site will inspire residents to purge piles of paper and free up more storage in their homes. Professional shredders or document destruction experts are accustomed to taking their show on the road – they set up operations on a routine schedule at hospitals and medical offices. Sure, it’ll take some expenditure from your budget, but dollars originally intended for all those COVID-canceled events have to go somewhere or you won’t have them to use next year.

Remember, these industrial shredders are noisy, so don’t set them up too early. Also, you might want to ignore the actual date of April 22 – technically Earth Day --  because that’s a Thursday and fewer people might be able to participate. Hey, folks are accustomed to Earth Day activities being shifted to the weekend. Or, stick with a weekday and pay the crew to stay around into the evening hours.

So, what does shredding have to do with Earth Day? Well, if you choose your document destruction company well, you’ll get one that commits to recycling all that shredded paper. A useful service for residents and piles of paper off your property and bound for recycling? A winning combination!

Enlist your landscape crew to let the children on the property have a hand in planting the flowering spring beds. Poll residents who are parents about their interest level. Have the landscapers set aside X-number of flowering plants for each participating kid. On the designated day, the masked crew can show the children, properly distanced and of course in the open air, how to plant them. You’re going to pay to have your flowering beds replanted this spring anyway, so the only extra cost will be in persuading the landscapers to schedule a Saturday when families can participate.

Make a donation to Earth Day activities at the schools the children who live in your community attend. Schools traditionally have been a major player in Earth Day events, but they often struggle to come up with the budget to carry out their programs. A well-placed financial gift will make your youngest residents – and their parents – happy and proud of their community.

And speaking of gifts, well, if you want to reward participation in those first two projects, we have just the suggestion: a small gift such as our stainless steel straw set or a straw and brush combination. For more substantial gifts, our entire New Leaf Collection was chosen to be environmentally friendly, with minimal, reusable or recyclable packaging.