Join ACLT Staff and volunteers as we work on the hiking trails in preparation for spring and summer hikes. Trail clearing, weed whacking, sign posting, mulching….a great day to enjoy the outdoors!

Meet at ACLT south side trailhead on Scientists Cliffs Road, Port Republic

Cook out and picnic lunch for volunteers at Noon. Please notify the office if you plan to participate. For more information call 410-414-3400 or email us at volunteer@acltweb.org.

Christina and Frank Allen will be showing the movie “Develop a Sustainable Vegetable Garden Plan”. It is good for both beginning gardeners and also there is much that seasoned gardeners will appreciate.  It will be March 27th at 3 pm at the Cole Cinema, St. Mary’s College. It is free.

Ya Gotta Have a Plan!

Develop a Sustainable Vegetable Garden Plan is an intensive course in garden planning, compete with handouts and field trips. In this DVD, Cindy Conner shows you how to put together a notebook with a plan unique to your garden. The companion worksheets help you determine how many seeds and plants you need, where they go and when, when to expect a harvest, and what to plant next. You will learn to mak a garden map, to plan rotations, and to keep your garden full all year long. Whether you are new to all this, or an experienced gardener, this DVD will help you become more efficient, allowing you to enjoy your garden to the max. You will meet some of Cindy’s friends who are happy to show you their gardens, the result of careful planning.

When she began growing vegetables in 1974, Cindy Conner knew little about gardening. She studied everything she could find about organic methods so she could produce nutritious food and have a healthy family. Eventually her concern extended to a healthy community. Cindy was a market gardener for 10 years. Now, with her videos, the community she is reaching has expanded. In more than a decade of teaching, she has developed a system of garden planning she wants to share with you. Cindy lives in Virgina in Zone 7.

Cindy’s garden has been in production for 25 years and you will learn of its transformations through that time. You will see seven other gardens ranging from 100 sq. ft. to a half acre and listen to the gardeners tell how garden planning helped them, as you tag along for a tour.

You can purchase your own copy of the DVD at http://www.homeplaceearth.com/.

Cole Cinema is located in Campus Center. Download a walking map of the college.

On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations. Learn more about how Earth Hour began, what we’ve accomplished, and what is in store for 2010.

Free and open to the public

Filmmaker Scott Kennedy’s 2008 film, The Garden, documents the struggles of Latino/a farmers in South Central Los Angeles to keep their 14-acre community garden, the largest urban garden in the U.S., from repossession and land development. In cinéma vérité fashion, it tells the story of backroom deals, green politics, money, poverty, power, and racial discord.

TFMS’s Third Annual Film Series will focus on environmental film. Internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers Scott Hamilton Kennedy (United States), Yung Chang (China/Canada), and Wolfgang Widerhofer (Austria) will screen and discuss a variety of work that explores a range of environmental issues. Topics include environmental displacement, environmental racism, built environments and social activism, and dependence and sustainability.

Get more details at the TFMS website.

Last year volunteers collected 70 bags of trash, nine tires, and approximately a half ton of loose trash from the St. Mary’s River Water Trail and the St. Mary’s College of Maryland campus, including the site of a recent reforestation project.

“We urge residents to get involved with the cleanup this year. It’s a great way to meet neighbors, spend time with your family and feel good about yourself and your community,” said Ginny Harris, Cleanup Coordinator with the Alice Ferguson Foundation.

Meet at the Great Mills Canoe/Kayak Launch, off MD Route 5, at 9 a.m. Bring your own canoe or kayak, life vest, and paddling gear. Help cleanup the St. Mary’s River and improve your watershed!

Please call 301-862-3517 or email info@StMarysRiver.org to RSVP.

Trash and litter has negative effects in many areas of life in the region:

• It harms wildlife;
• costs taxpayers precious funds for cleanup and removal;
• is a public health threat by increasing breeding grounds for virus carrying insects and rodents;
• decreases property values;and hurts businesses, recreation and tourism.

The St. Mary’s River Cleanup is part of the Alice Ferguson Foundation 22nd Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup, http://www.fergusonfoundation.org/trash_initiative/trash_cleanup.shtml.
There are more than 200 cleanup sites in Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

If you have a group interested in helping please contact us in advance by calling Bob at 410-394-1300

Cosponsored by the Friends of Myrtle Point Park and the Sierra Club Southern Maryland Group

Free and open to the public

Filmmaker Yung Chang will screen and discuss his first feature-length documentary, the critically acclaimed, award-winning Up the Yangtze (2007). The film documents the moving and richly detailed narrative of a peasant family forced to negotiate the historic changes brought on by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric mega-dam and China’s biggest engineering endeavor since the Great Wall.

TFMS’s Third Annual Film Series will focus on environmental film. Internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers Scott Hamilton Kennedy (United States), Yung Chang (China/Canada), and Wolfgang Widerhofer (Austria) will screen and discuss a variety of work that explores a range of environmental issues. Topics include environmental displacement, environmental racism, built environments and social activism, and dependence and sustainability.

Get more details at the TFMS website.

Join the American Chestnut Land Trust as we celebrate Earth Day! Work on roadsides in the local community and on selected ACLT projects. It’s a day to clean-up our corner of Calvert County working alongside our friends and neighbors! Meet at our south side trailhead on Scientists Cliffs Road in Port Republic (across from Gate A). Cookout lunch to follow at Noon at Double Oak Farm. RSVP to Joy Woppert at 410-414-3400 or volunteer@acltweb.org

Leonardtown Goes Green! 10th Anniversary Earth Day Celebration

• Live Music & Entertainment
• Children’s Nature Crafts
• Energy & Water Conservation
• Animal Welfare & Rescue
• Recycling Information
• Yoga Demonstrations
• Seated Massages
• Puppet Show
• Kayak & Canoe Rides
• Food & More!

The 10th Anniversary Earth Day Celebration, in historic downtown Leonardtown, 12:30 – 4:30 pm Sunday April 18th, 2010 will include nearly 100 exhibitors, vendors and performances. FREE ADMISSION.

Two stages for entertainment – on the square and at the wharf along the new Leonardtown waterfront – featuring musical performances and dance demonstrations throughout the day.

Kayak and canoe rides will be offered by various local outfitters from the new floating dock on the waterfront as well as a native plant walk and a tiger bounce, face painting and a puppet show for the kids.

HillSide Electric cars and the Leonardtown Fire Department will provide shuttle service between the waterfront and the square.

Animal displays include the Cosca Regional Park’s live birds of prey, the Alpacas from Nobella Farms and the greyhounds from the Greyt Expectations Rescue.

Environmental organizations will provide recycling, conservation and organic gardening information. Area non-profits and service organizations will be featured and local businesses and restaurants will be open many offering Earth Day specials.

For the complete listing of activities and map go to www.thelba.org

Sponsored by the Leonardtown Business Association and the Commissioners of Leonardtown, with funding in part by a grant from the St. Mary’s County Arts Council

Free and open to the public

Austrian filmmaker Wolfgang Widerhofer will screen the 2005 documentary Our Daily Bread and discuss his role as editor and dramaturg on the film. As a collaborator since 1994 with director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Widerhofer has worked as producer, director, screenwriter, and editor and has edited each of Geyrhalter’s films since Washed Ashore (1994).

Our Daily Bread is described by its official Website as “a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest – and in which we all take part.” The film explores the world of European industrial food production as seen through “surreal landscapes plasticized and optimized for tractors and agricultural machinery, sterile rooms in cool industrial buildings designed to ensure logistic efficiency, machines that require uniform materials for smooth processing. What might look like something from the world of science fiction is reality. Our food is produced in spectacular spaces which are seldom seen.”

TFMS’s Third Annual Film Series will focus on environmental film. Internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers Scott Hamilton Kennedy (United States), Yung Chang (China/Canada), and Wolfgang Widerhofer (Austria) will screen and discuss a variety of work that explores a range of environmental issues. Topics include environmental displacement, environmental racism, built environments and social activism, and dependence and sustainability.

Get more details at the TFMS website.