Sustainability and Redlands

On Saturday, March 29th the city of Redlands hosted the Sustainability Festival on the University of Redlands campus in an effort of bringing awareness and educating locals on how to use resources wisely in their home and daily life. The Redlands Sustainability Network was formed in Redlands in 2011 and their mission is to inform and encourage people to make sustainable choices and to create a healthier, more equitable and prosperous community. The day-long event included over 90 exhibitors, live entertainment, food, and a film festival highlighting climate change and sustainability. Students from the University along with the City of Redlands worked together to bring the event to fruition, bringing organizations and groups from throughout the community together to share information on the programs they have available. The Redlands Friends of Shelter Animals were on-hand with some animals from the shelter striving to bring awareness to the animals available for adoption. Nancy Mitchell, the Director of Public Relations was there with volunteers and said, “the city relies on supplemental help, our goal is to get funds to build additional kennels to hold more animals.” Shree Rajagopalan said, “We help the Redlands Animal Shelter get their animals adopted so we can bring the euthanasia rate down, we want to become a no-kill shelter eventually.” Kids and families enjoyed petting and playing with the dogs they brought out. Malisia Wilkins, Marketing Manager for the student café, Bon Appetit, was there to bring awareness to the week-long event, Farmworkers Awareness Week. The café is open to the public and their menu is based on seasonality and availability of local ingredients. Clarks, the health food market in Loma Linda had a booth and handed out apples, bananas, and reusable bags to those passing by. Across from them, The Boys and Girls Club had a booth set up to pass out flyers to help them promote their summer day camp called Camp Einstein where science, technology, engineering, math and imagination collide in the outdoors. Michael Hardin is a staff writer for the Bulldog Weekly, the University of Redlands publication and was there to cover the event saying, “I think it’s just really good to experience two communities, the City of Redlands and the University of Redlands to promote the event in different ways. There is activism and people promoting health and wellness, adult literacy and sustainability. Economic, mental health and sustainability all fall under the same umbrella.” Roger Bell, one of the co-founders of the Redlands Sustainability Network, had the opportunity to chat with Karen Pope at The Crafton Hills Open Space Conservancy table, saying, “Our background started with a small Greenpeace group and we were looking at larger issues and we decided we needed to engage more locally and pulled together a group and started talking about what we wanted to do and what we wanted to call ourselves. We formed a community of about a dozen people and drew up a mission statement and we’ve been going about two years and have further plans focused on water issues, and ways in which to conserve water.” He stated there was a “recognition to get people aware of all things to do with sustainability and all that is going on already, and what the city is doing, and to encourage others to do similar things like having a drought resistant garden.” Attendees also learned about composting, using non-invasive plants that come into California and other Eco-friendly plants that could be planted instead. Ashley Clair Johnson the Administrative Technician and Cecilia Griego the Water Conservation Coordinator for the city of Redlands Water Conservation were handing out 5-minute water timers for showers and giving information to consumers. Griego said, “We have our water audit program and water rebate program, it’s for products that are low in water usage and they can get incentives from using or replacing their products.” Laurene Richmond is a retired 1st grade teacher from Rialto and came to the event with her husband, John. She stated, “Sustainability is important everywhere, if we’re going to leave something for the generations to come as we have enjoyed it.” Tracy Marrs came with her son and mother while her husband was taking a class at the U of R. Marrs stated, “My mom went to the school, and I went to the school, and my husband is going to school now, and we all like the school and my son is talking about coming here. I think it’s really cool, we got to see the process of printing a shirt and my son got to touch a worm and that’s always exciting and my mom is a gardener so she enjoyed the gardening aspect.” Elvira Rubio also came out with her family, who was born and raised in Redlands. She said, “My son is interested in science so we came to check it out, he’s excited about the water testing. I think it’s great. It has lots of good information, lost of hands-on information and it’s good for families.” Other groups that attended included Beaver Medical Group, The San Bernardino County Museum, Redlands Art Association, Redlands Democratic Club, YMCA, Friends of the A.K. Smiley Library, and more. People strolled along chatting with the various groups, listened to live music by Austin Tannenbaum and the band Last Call Luke, learned about renewable energy for their home, composting and healthy eating, or stopped to enjoy some ice cream from A la Minute while their kids enjoyed face painting and played in the bounce house. Maggie Ruopp, a U of R student volunteer sat at a table to answer questions from people and said, ”I think it’s a great merge on campus between the University and the Council, it was put on with the two groups, it’s a really cool event, and it is great to see the two working together for a great cause in this day and age and its fun for all ages.”