Volunteers launch 3-year effort to make global warming more personal with Saturday cleanup project in baylands
7/8/2007. Mercury News
The initiative, known as the Green Challenge 07-09, is being organized by the Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley.
"We're calling it enviro-actions," said center director Tim Quigley.
During the next three years, Quigley's group will recruit hundreds of
volunteers to engage quar terly in an eco-friendly activity. The goal
is to find new volunteers among participating community groups and
families. Just as the anti-smoking
campaign of the last few decades took serious hold only when
communities rallied around no-smoking causes, Quigley believes that
only with local community-based activities will the fight against
pollution and global warming become personal.
The next project, slated for
September, will involve volunteers walking Sunnyvale neighborhoods to
take a survey of households with an eye toward helping residents become
aware of energy and water use. Saturday's participants included
young families, Gunn High School students, members of the Korean
American Professional Society, several Adobe Systems employees and even
a contingent from Table for Six, a matchmaking service.
"Find love and some fennel," said a laughing Amanda Newkirk, who
organized the Table for Six outing to rip out non-native plants in Palo
Alto's Baylands Preserve.
Local leaders who participated Saturday included Sunnyvale Mayor Otto
Lee, Foothill-De Anza Community College District board member Paul
Fong, Santa Clara council member Jamie McCloud, the Rev. Margo Tenold
who is co-director of the Santa Clara County Council of Churches, and
representatives of sponsors AT&T, Adobe Systems, DLA Piper and
Peet's Coffee.
Experts from Save the Bay instructed the amateur crews on how to spot
invasive plants that for decades have intruded on ecologically
sensitive baylands, which are home to endangered species such as the
California clapper rail and salt marsh harvest mouse.
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