Dearborn Sustainability Coalition

We had a very informative meeting with the Dearborn Sustainable Roundtable IV (Part II) on February 15 at the Henry Ford Community College SME Annex, which was sponsored by The League of Women Voters Dearborn/Dearborn Heights (LWVDDH).

Thank you to Professor Lore, MS, of HFCC and Lynna Kaucheck, of Food and Water Watch (www.fwwatch.org) for speaking at our event. The next roundtable will be a potluck on March 23, 2011 from 6 – 8 p.m. in the HFCC SME building. It will be the third and last installment of Professor Lore’s talk about the food issues that we are facing.

To recap: Part One – “CAFOs or Factory Farms”; Part Two – “Chemical’s in Our Food with special attention on BPA and GMOs”; and the third and final installment will be – “Who Really Controls Our Food Supply?” The second half of the meeting will be left for questions, networking, and discussions about food issues. We hope to have some lively discussions and possibly some solutions.

Remember to invite friends, family, and neighbors over for Earth Hour (www.earthhour.org) on March 26, 2011. It is a good time to have dinner together, and then from 8:30 – 9:30 p.m. turn off your lights, television and any unnecessary electrical appliances. Light the candles and have a discussion of “Why sustainable living is a must.” It is better to use our resources wisely, and to “recycle, reduce, reuse, and conserve.” We still have beeswax candles, donations to support the roundtables.

From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on April 23, 2011, the day after Earth Day, will be a day of action for the Dearborn Sustainability Coalition (formerly Dearborn Cool Cities Group). We hope to get a lot of people out to The Henry Ford Estate at U of M-Dearborn to help pull garlic mustard (an invasive species), organized by the Lake Plain Cluster of the Stewardship Council. Meet at the U of M-D Environmental Interpretive Center, at 9 a.m.; workday ends at noon. Work gloves and trash bags will be provided. Registration is required by going online to the Stewardship Network website www.stewardshipnetwork.org ("sign up for events" button on the left).

Why get rid of invasive plants? Exotic plants removed from their original habitat begin to reproduce abundantly in their new settings, causing significant environmental disruption. Invasive plants have competitive advantages over native plant species, which can be an ecological nightmare. For more information, go to www.for-wild.org.

If anyone is interested in being on the planning committee for future roundtables and events, we would very much welcome you. There is an event that we are planning for this summer to raise donations for the City of Dearborn’s Adopt-A-Watt program, which was proposed by Mayor O’Reilly in light of the budget cuts. If you wish to help, or want more information, e-mail dearborncoolcities@gmail.com.