Earth Day 2023: An Opportunity to Celebrate or Volunteer

Author: Liz Clift

At Great Ecology, we’re lucky, because we get to do good things for the environment every day. However, we know that’s not true for everyone. This year, Earth Day (April 22) falls on a weekend, which means you may have opportunities to go to an Earth Day celebration. These can range from relatively small community gatherings to events held at science museums, city halls, and the like that have activities for kids and adults such as:

• Making your own paper;
• Learning to properly sort and clean recyclables;
• Making mason bee, bird, or bat houses;
• Talks on topics like bee-keeping, planting for native pollinators, or backyard composting;
• Growing your own culinary mushrooms;
• Using magnifying glasses to look at bugs in a decaying long; and
• More!

You may also be able to find opportunities to volunteer with organizations near you who are dedicated to helping improve the environment. Examples of these types of volunteer opportunities are:

• Beach, river, or roadside clean-up;
• A planting party;
• A community garden creation or clean-up;
• Invasive species removal;
• Trail building; and
• Urban regreening.

Volunteering with these organizations can help you learn more about the work they do—and connect you with other people in your community who care about the same things as you!

However, we know attending a community celebration or volunteering on Saturday won’t be accessible to everyone for a variety of reasons—and we want to remind you that there are other ways to foster earth-care than just volunteering or attending a celebration on Earth Day!

Many of the organizations that run Earth Day volunteer events and community celebrations are under-funded—and contributions (either financial or in-kind) to these organizations can make a difference in the programming they’re able to offer and the work they’re able to do over the course of the year. You might even get creative about what you offer or talk with them about their needs!

If the timing is the only problem, these organizations also often need more volunteers to help pull off events—or simply to do day-to-day logistics. If you have time to give, you might consider reaching out to an organization that does work you’re passionate about and talking with them about how your time and skills could be matched with their needs. Please understand that sometimes there may not be a good fit for you at the time (and that that’s nothing personal!).

Sharing posts of your favorite groups doing good for the environment via your social media channels can also help drive attention (or even attendance) to the work they’re doing!

You can also cultivate earth-care by simply learning more about the natural world—and, if you have kids in your life, encouraging them to do the same! We’ll have a follow-up post on some recommended things to read, watch, and listen to that help foster a stronger sense of ecology!

If you still want to do more than we’ve listed here, we’ve previously posted ways that you can make personal changes to support the health and well-being of the earth.