SEQUIM — The day promises to be dazzling.
Sequim, the North Olympic Peninsula’s locus of lavender, sunshine and organic produce, will roll out a big, new festival on Saturday: a citywide teaching moment to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
Outdoors and in, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sequim Earth Day 2010 will turn attendees’ eyes toward a cleaner future, while counting the ways caring for the Earth can be fun.
“There will be lots of activities for children and the general population, and lots of useful information about saving our resources,” Sequim Mayor Pro Tem and Earth Day festival chairwoman Laura Dubois said this week.
Dubois has been dreaming up Earth Day 40th anniversary activities for a year now.
Earth Day central
These days she’s been inviting anyone she encounters to the various venues: The Sequim Boys & Girls Club at 400 W. Fir St. is Earth Day central, with booths, displays and workshops on small changes that help make a big difference.
They include:
• Feeding birds in your backyard, 11:15 a.m.
• Reaping rebates for green home-remodeling projects, 12:15 p.m.
• Harnessing sunshine to lower your electricity bill, 2:15 p.m.
• Enjoying fresh-seasonal foods and growing a garden while saving water and money, 12:30 p.m.
Also at the Boys & Girls Club, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Battelle, which runs the marine research labs on Sequim Bay, will give a presentation on renewable tidal energy, at 10:30 a.m. and again at 2:30 p.m.
Sequim’s public gardens will be in full flower.
• At the original Community Garden of Sequim behind St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at 525 N. Fifth Ave., volunteers will give a composting demonstration at noon.
• A ribbon-cutting and celebration will start at noon at the new June Robinson Memorial Park and community garden on Spruce Street at Sunnyside Avenue.
• The Master Gardeners of the Olympic Peninsula’s budding demonstration gardens, adjacent to Carrie Blake Park at 202 N. Blake Ave., will be open for tours.
• Nearby at the Water Reuse Demonstration Site, Clallam Conservation District guides will lead walks around the park, homing in on native plants, at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
And just north of town, the McComb Gardens nursery at 751 McComb Road is showing off its new grid-tied solar power system and its collection of wildlife-friendly, chemical-free plants.
To reduce their start-up costs for the solar array, McComb owners Jane Stewart and Neil Burkhardt took advantage of First Federal’s $15,000 loan program, a $2,115 Clallam County Public Utility District rebate and an $8,000 tax credit.
So their out-of-pocket expenditure this year for the $30,000 system, Burkhardt said, was about $3,600.
“That’s less than a used car,” he noted.
The solar array was installed by Port Townsend’s Power Trip Energy Corp.
For more information about McComb Gardens, phone 360-681-2827 or visit www.mccombgardens.com.
For more information on Power Trip Energy visit www.powertripenergy.com or phone 360-643-3080.
Activities, movies
Back in downtown Sequim, the Blue Whole Gallery, 129 W. Washington St., will demonstrate — and invite people to participate in — the making of art with recycled stuff, and an exhibit of recycled art awaits at the Museum & Arts Center, 175 W. Cedar St.
Doodlebugs, the craft shop at 138 W. Washington St., is inviting children to come in and plant a sunflower in a peat pot.
They can then put the whole thing in the ground and watch it grow up this summer, free of the confines of a plastic container.
Earth Day also has movies: a pair of them, screening at Olympic Theatre Arts, 414 N. Sequim Ave.
“Harvest Dreams” is Friends of the Fields’ documentary about local farmers including Nash Huber of Nash’s Organic Produce, Steve Johnson of Lazy J and the Jarvis family of the Finn Hall Farm.
It screens at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday.
It will be followed by “The Power of Community,” a movie about how Cuba’s people coped with the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the drastic reduction in oil and food shipments — in 1990.
During what’s known as the “Special Period,” Cubans coped by drawing on their creativity and sense of community.
And as they navigated the economic crisis, they made the transition from an industrial, machinery-intense agriculture system to organic farming and urban gardening. “Power” screens at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
“Everything is free” on Earth Saturday, Dubois said.
And lest enthusiasts lose their way, the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce will set up a booth in Bank of America Park at the corner of Sequim Avenue and Washington Street to provide information and maps to all festival locations.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
