7 minute read
Planting a greener future
BY ALYSSA BIEDERMAN
Every April, just as the weather gets warm, you can find a group of Collingwood residents geared up to make a difference.
The Green Festival, now in its 12th year, is a meeting place for activists, neighbors and elected officials. Listen in on their conversations and you’ll hear words like “rain barrel,” “bike share,” and “compost.”
The annual event is the culmination of years of work by Sustainable Collingswood, a local group of eco-activists who have worked in the borough for more than 20 years. They call themselves the “Green Team” and they are the ones responsible for Collingswood’s tree-lined streets and community gardens.
“It’s important to me to make our community better in every way that we can,” said Sandi Kelly, coordinator of Sustainable Collingswood.
Kelly works to manage Sustainable Collingswood on a statewide scale. The organization is part of Sustainable New Jersey, through which the borough was ranked a “Silver Sustainability Community” in 2019.
The Green Team’s efforts are backed by Commissioner Joan Leonard, who took her oath of office 24 years ago. When Leonard moved to Collingswood, she was inspired to act after learning of a new incinerator slated to be built in Camden.
As a lover of nature, she vowed to stop the construction. The incinerator would pump greenhouse gases into Camden’s already polluted atmosphere.
Leonard joined A Solution Against Pollution (ASAP) and rallied against the new build. Hours spent protesting were unsuccessful and the incinerator prevailed. Leonard was devastated.
“How could I be at peace with something that I was so upset with?” she said. “I had to do something positive, because I was exhausted from not feeling heard.”
In the late 1990s, Leonard’s work got her noticed by now-Mayor Jim Maley, who asked her to run for city commissioner as part of his ticket.
“I said to him, do you know who I am?” Leonard remembered. “Do you know that I go to rallies and carry picket signs?”
Her passion brought her into office, where, 24 years later, she has revolutionized Collingswood’s commitment to sustainability. She began by planting more than 1,000 trees and stopped the use of pesticides in public parks.
For every year in office, Leonard promised to create a new, eco-friendly initiative in the city. Many ideas were born at her kitchen table, like Collingswood’s bike share, which rehabs donated bikes and leases them to residents for $25 a year.
Together, Leonard, Kelly and the Green please see GREEN, page 20
Photos by Jamie Stow/08108 Above left: The Green Fair last month offered up a variety of plants for sale. Above right: A sign alerts passersby to one of the borough’s community gardens. Previous page: Plants fl ourish in the garden. EuropeanVibe CoffeeBar Baklava Bougatsa Spanakopita
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continued from page 19 Team have created two community gardens, hosted block clean-ups ty gardens, hosted block clean-ups and helped provide discounted rain barrels and compost bins to their neighbors.
“This has been a great blessing to me to be able to take what could have been sadness and create opportunities,” Leonard noted.
This year, Leonard is focused on helping residents modify their lawns and outdoor spaces to make them more habitable for local wildlife, like birds, butterflies and bees.
“We need to do this so that we are not wiping them out, but helping to sustain them and helping the next generation,” she explained.
The Green Team is also working to imple-
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ment the borough’s bike and pedestrian master plan, which will create routes through Collingswood routes through Collingswood to encourage sustainable modes of transportation, Kelly said.
The Green Team has worked to make eco-friendly living a community endeavor. Thousands of people have attended the Green Festival, which brings together other organizations to teach visitors about renewable energy, recycling, water conservation and more.
Kelly recommends trying Sustainable Collingswood’s Green Challenge, a list of ways individuals can reduce their carbon footprint. The challenge, available on collingswood.com, includes a beginner checklist with things like reducing shower time and donating old clothing. Those looking to do more are invited to compost kitchen waste or grow a Habitat Wildlife Garden.
“Every person can make small changes and those things add up to big changes,” Kelly said. “There’s hundreds of habits you can change and if you just pick a few, that’s perfect.”
The Green Business Alliance, a new program, operates a similar challenge for businesses, which can be certified as “green” upon completion.
Leonard welcomes new ideas, noting that Collingswood’s volunteers are dedicated to making it a reality.
“There’s so much support and everybody wants to help,” she said. “We all have to hold hands and say we’re in this together, so the next generation has a good life.” ■
Photos by Jamie Stow/08108 From left: Plants are for sale at last month’s Green Fair. The fair also collected a variety of recyclable materials and special waste, aiming to educate the public on how to dispose of certain items. Collingswood boasts two community gardens.
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