Market Square (7 Beckwith Street)
Second Annual EARTHFEST, April 20th in Carleton Place
A free event with things to do for the whole family!
#cpeacearthfest2024
Celebrate Earth Day at the second annual EARTHFEST, Saturday, April 20th at Market Square, 7 Beckwith St. in Carleton Place.
EARTHFEST 2024 SCHEDULE: Plan your day at EarthFEST!
CARLETON PLACE PUBLIC LIBRARY, just up the road a few blocks from the festival site! Environmental films will be running throughout the day!
MAIN EVENT SITE MARKET SQUARE: 11-3 pm. 7 Beckwith St., Note: This area of the festival is accessible.
Learn about: how to reduce your household waste, start a garden, climate & health concerns, what is being done in our region for the environment, how to mend clothing items, how to compost properly, learn about water protection for the Mississippi and how residents can help, Learn the essentials of preserving and canning food, shifting to include more plant-based food in your diet, and more!
Engage with the many Lanark County-based organizations that will be on hand and doing great things to preserve our local environment.
REFRESHMENTS, FOOD: Several food vendors offering yummy lunch items will be on site for your convenience. Please bring your own insulated drink container to reduce waste. The Carleton Place Youth Centre has been invited as a vendor to help with their fundraising efforts.
CIRCULAR MATERIALS, who is the organization responsible for Ontario's recycling and change to producer responsibility, will be there to teach how to recycle properly and answer the many questions you may have about recycling in Ontario.
EV TEST DRIVES!! EVCO will have several models of EV's on hand for test drives! We recommend you pre-register for a test drive to ensure you get an opportunity: https://evexperience.ca/events/earthfest-2024/
WORKSHOPS FOR EVERYONE!
There will be 5 expert facilitated workshops in the circle as was done last year, but new for this year...there will also be a few hands-on workshops for adults and youth this year!
CHILDREN’S WORKSHOPS: BY Carleton Place & District Horticulture Society
Several workshops including:
- seed planting in recycling planters that kids can decorate
- painted garden stone markers
- pipe cleaner monarch caterpillars/butterflies & rusty patched bumble bees
- DIY recycling journal for recording native plants, insects, etc.
Glen Caradus Children & Youth 5-12 Workshops
- 12:00 Noon: Soapstone Carving Workshop - Join musician and puppeteer Glen and carve a beautiful soapstone pendant with sandpaper. A very fun and easy activity that can be done in 20 to 30 minutes.
- 2 p.m. - Limberjack (Dancing Puppet) Making - Join Glen “The Paddling Puppeteer” and make a simple wooden dancing “limberjack” puppet in 20 to 30 minutes. Your puppet will be “dancing up a storm” in no time.
AT THE WORKSHOP CIRCLE:
45 MINUTES EACH WORKSHOP including a Q & A session following the presentation.
- 11 AM: ORGANIC GARDENING WORKSHOP - ALBERTO SUAREZ ESTOBAN – owner of Nature’s Apprentice Farm - Alberto will provide vegetable related gardening sharing tips and tricks on garden insect prevention and organic methods of control. Alberto's deep fascination and appreciation for Nature, and his obsession with leaving the world better than he found it, led him to a career in Biology. While doing his PhD, he became aware of the huge impact that industrial agriculture has on biodiversity and on our climate. He co-founded Nature's Apprentice Farm in Pakenham as a way to learn from Nature, to contribute to the development and mainstream adoption of regenerative agriculture and feed the community. Join Alberto to learn about regenerative practices you can use to take your garden to the next level!
- 11:50 A.M: COMPOSTING 101 with Scott Hortop (Community Compost Composers), Geraldine Baker (Vericomposting and William Affleck (Just Good Compost). Did you know that the average Canadian contributes 200 Kg of kitchen scraps to the landfill each year. This is bad news for the climate. Organics in the landfill produce methane, a green-house gas (ghg) that is 80 times more damaging to the environment than C02. Indeed, Canadian landfills create the equivalent ghg's of 20.3 million passenger vehicles or 11.9 million heated homes every year. This workshop will provide the basics for a successful start to composting from traditional methods to vermicomposting and an overview of the JUST GOOD COMPOST compost pick up program in Carleton Place. For those who would rather opt into this wonderful service, you will be able to register at EarthFEST. Customers are given a refurbished 3-gallon plastic bucket for their kitchen scraps, which is picked-up and replaced with a clean one every week, reducing odours and the need to wash the bucket. Food scraps are taken to local farms where they are converted into compost. Customers are welcome to the compost when it is ready or can donate it to local charities such as the community gardens or the youth center. A portion also goes to local farmers for fertilizer. Just Good Compost is a social enterprise and employs local people with intellectual disabilities to help with the pick-up and bucket washing. The service costs $5.50/week (price of a latte) or $275/ year (saving a month). The town of Carleton Place is subsidizing $50 from the first 500 annual subscriptions. It is hoped that this subsidy will increase next year if the pilot proves successful.
- 12:40: OUR WATER QUALITY: HOW WE CAN ALL HELP - Facilitators: Marissa Okum (Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority) & Doreen Donald (Carleton Place - Urban Forest River Corridor Committee). Everyone has the capacity to impact our water systems, even if we do not realize it. Join our workshop to learn more about how our systems interact, and what steps we can take to improve surface water and ground water for generations to come! Topics covered include septic system management, road salt application, native plantings, and more.
- 1:20 PM: CANNING & PROCESSING 101 - Facilitator: Melanie Mills from Plan B Charitable Community Organization in the Lanark Highlands. Food is a precious commodity that grows all around us and is there for the harvesting. Food that can be preserved in so many ways, to be used in any season. Regardless of your taste preferences, the abundance and bounty provided by nature combined with the simple processes involved in food preservation, you are sure to find what you are looking for. Melanie will cover the different ways food can be preserved. Whether it is dehydrated, canned, fermented, or smoked it is a process that by preserving food, preserves life. The food can be wild or domestic, animal or vegetable. We will give an overview into a fascinating world of filling a pantry for the winter at an incredibly low cost. Join us.
- 2:10 PM: PLANT-BASED DIET: Reducing your meat and dairy consumption - Facilitator: Karine Lang, owner of 613 Plant-Based - Learn easy and cost-effective ways to increase plant-based foods into your diet. Karine Lang, owner, and chef at 613 Plant-Based will share her top 10 tips on plant-based eating. She will also share some of her all-time favorite recipes to start you on your journey to a plant-based diet. Karine Lang's extensive experience of over two decades living a plant-based lifestyle speaks volumes about her dedication and expertise in this field. She is committed to helping others embrace plant-based eating through her workshops, cooking classes, and coaching services.
- DARN IT! – MENDING WORKSHOP (all ages)- ongoing throughout the day - Facilitated by Cara LaRochelle - Did you know that Canadians throw away nearly 500 million kilograms of clothing and home items made of fabric every year*? Join us for a crash course in mending and hang on to that favourite shirt or your comfiest jeans for years to come. Learn how to repair small tears, patch holes and fix falling-down hems. We’ll even share our foolproof trick for sewing on buttons, so they never fall off again! Bring your mending with you, or practice on our scrap fabric. No supplies needed.
- PAINT WITH JANET & The Art for Aid Project (all ages, & on going throughout the day) - The Earth without Art is just Eh! The Art for Aid Project and Paint With Janet are committed to bringing you environmentally responsible creativity. For Earth Day 2024 we invite you to come and create your very own watercolour painting using fabulous Beam Paints; Plastic Free Paints, Lightfast pigments, tree sap, handmade watercolour paints, 100% indigenous -https://www.beampaints.com - The Art for Aid Project ~ A support and awareness initiative. We ship art supplies and support skills labs for Indigenous schools in Canada. We are volunteer run and are a program under I Love First Peoples. https://www.facebook.com/artforaid.ca https://artforaidshop.ca www.ilfp.ca Paint With Janet ~ “Some people only dream about meeting their favourite artists...I teach mine.” From teaching basic skills to creating a full painting, Paint With Janet gets you out of your comfort zone then you can’t help but see the world differently. https://www.facebook.com/Paintwithjanet
LIVE AT THE STAGE!
11 am -11:45 am - C.A. & SONNY - in concert
11: 45: TODAY, WE START WITH A WALK - An original theatre piece created and performed by the Play Where You Live Youth Ensemble
12:15 - 12:50 pm - BALL & CHAIN - in Concert
12:50: TODAY, WE START WITH A WALK - An original theatre piece created and performed by the Play Where You Live Youth Ensemble
1 pm - 1:45 pm - C.A. & SONNY – in concert
2 pm - 2:45 pm - BALL & CHAIN – in concert
AT THE ALL NATIONS CHURCH: (39 Bridge St., close to the main event location)
That’s right! We’ve rented the Church to expand EarthFEST this year!
10:30 a.m: PADDLING PUPPETEERS! - The Town of Carleton Place is co-presenting a wonderful children's performance by Paddling Puppeteers from Peterborough. Glen Caradus will be sure to put a smile on your child. Glen is no stranger to this area, and has performed all over the County including the Puppets-Up festival. - https://paddlingpuppeteers.com/about/
2:30 p.m. DIVING INTO THE PLANET WITH JILL HEINERTH - Cave diver Jill Heinerth, Explorer in Residence with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Jill, who is a resident of Carleton Place, has been documenting findings from her dives in the Mississippi Lake and river corridor, and the Ottawa River. This amazing lady has a stellar movie about her life being released soon. Long believed to be endlessly resilient, our water planet now faces unprecedented challenges, and so do we. Jill Heinerth delivers a message that combines cautionary notes with optimism, unveiling the intricate connection between our lives and the water systems that sustain us. More people have walked on the moon than have been to the places Jill Heinerth has explored. Instead of following maps, she has blazed a trail into the planet, exploring lava tubes beneath the seafloor, submerged caves inside icebergs and the deepest recesses of the world’s oceans. In this captivating presentation, Heinerth shares extraordinary experiences and the profound lessons gleaned from the perilous world of extreme underwater exploration and adventure filmmaking. Her wealth of practical knowledge offers valuable insights into the state of our water planet and how we can safeguard it for future generations. You can watch the movie trailer here. https://www.intotheplanet.com/
A Note about Garbage & Recycling at the festival:
We are aiming to have as little solid waste (garbage) as possible and will be collecting compost as well towards an end goal of zero waste.
Climate Network Lanark & Just Good Compost volunteers will be handling this for us!
https://www.climatenetworklanark.ca/
https://www.justgoodcompost.com/
Or our Facebook Event Page: https://fb.me/e/sV7Tp5CbD
Enquiries: Event Coordinator - Barbara Purdy at cpeac@carletonplace.ca