Looking forward to Spring!

Stay tuned for more information about a fun, free upcoming program. The PPLD Green Team and the Healthy Living Committee will host Master Gardener, Valerie Brodar, for a hands-on demonstration of making your very own urban garden! You will learn how to build your own raised garden bed, learn how to recognize good soil, and how to plant seeds. You will leave with some free garden supplies and tons of helpful gardening information.

We will meet at the Green Team Urban Garden at the Penrose Library, located near the lower parking lot on West Pikes Peak Avenue. More details coming soon. Registration is not required, but highly recommended to make sure you get your own supplies at the end!

If you have access to any land, even a small patch in the grassy strip by the street - you can become an urban farmer!

Organization! Pikes Peak Community Foundation and Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future

About Peak Alliance:

Looking to Our Future: Pikes Peak Region 2030 (PPR2030) is a strategic road map for achieving sustainability in the region by 2030. The roadmap was developed by a broad based collaborative effort representing volunteers, professionals and community leaders from nearly 100 organizations. The PPR2030, which was finalized in March 2012, provides a framework by which our local governments, institutions, businesses, and individuals can coordinate, collaborate, and find regional solutions to regional challenges.
The PPR2030 roadmap was initially administered by PPACG under the name of “Pikes Peak Regional Sustainability Project” but is now referred to as “Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future” (Peak Alliance), a component fund of the PPCF. Peak Alliance will build upon the momentum and enthusiasm generated through the 2 + year process that resulted in PPR2030. The mission of Peak Alliance is to promote regional sustainability and advance the PPR2030 through regional collaboration and outreach.

 And here's the Facebook page for Pikes Peak Community Foundation

Happy New Year! Sustainability in February

Happy 2016.  We took January off, but there are some nice things coming up, and it's going to get more exciting as spring approaches.  Here are a couple events this month:

Pikes Peak Urban Gardens is continuing a series:
CLASS #2 "All You Need to Know to Start Your Vegetable Garden": Garden Planning and Design, Preparing Soil and Site, Seed Starting, Container Gardening and More"
Saturday, February 20, 2016:
10 AM - 11:30 Am (doors open at 9:15 AM, please come early to visit all our local garden vendors and so we can get everyone in the door before the class starts at 10 AM)
Cost: $10 per person (pay at the door)
Designed to instruct the gardener on what needs to be done in the next 30 days to have a successful garden come planting time. Topics will include details on Larry's favorite varieties that grow well in this region, affordable season extending and hail protection structures that you can build now, seed starting in details, small space gardening, keyhole garden beds, planting perennial veggies and fruits like rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries. Learn Larry's secrets to have an abundant strawberry crop year after year and more.


Sustainability in Progress
February 17 @ 7:30 am - 9:00 amEach month the Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future hosts a morning speaker series Sustainability in Progress, also known as SIP. The Peak Alliance for a Sustainable Future promotes regional sustainability and advances the PPR2030 through regional collaboration and outreach.



And for the most current updates, be sure and follow our Facebook page.

Resource! Colorado Springs Utilities "Re: Sources" Blog

This post is worth it just for the photo!  Be sure and check CSU Re:Sources blog for great tips, news, and other information.  This post is about Range Anxiety.  Do you know what that is?  Hint: it's nothing to do with the cow in the photo.

Class! Taming Energy and Water Waste

Don't miss the last session in a 4 part series on Saving Money:  Taming Energy and Water Waste. Downloads from previous sessions are available.  From their website:

Session 4 will focus on residential renewable energy.  The basics of how solar and wind energy systems work; how much do they cost; what’s the return on investment; “are they right for me?”– limitations of these systems.

Guest speaker:  Mr. Phil Brodhagen, Owner, El Paso Green Energies. Local installer certified by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP)

The Southeastern Colorado Renewable Energy Society (SECRES) presents a series of 4 energy efficiency seminars designed to help residents and businesses make wiser decisions with their energy and water use. Choose one or all of the seminars to become more aware of your consumption, explore the benefits of saving resources, both financially and ecologically, and discover how you can become an energy producer, rather than just a consumer.

Resource! Environmental Working Group

From their website:

The Environmental Working Group’s mission is to empower people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. With breakthrough research and education, we drive consumer choice and civic action.
We are a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. 

Organization! Seeds Cafe

If you haven't visited Seeds Cafe, you've missed a great experience and fresh, locally grown food.  From their website:

Empowering People through the Power of Food

We believe that food literally has the power to change lives.

It happens every day at Seeds Community Cafe’. 

Our pay-as-you-can, pay-it-forward model helps us to give people a hand up, not a hand out. When a person no longer has to worry about where their next meal is coming from, they have the power to begin to create the life they see for themselves.
At Seeds, we help them do this through the act of sharing a meal, which goes beyond just creating community. It is our mission to bring people from all walks of life together, serve them locally-sourced healthy food, and encourage them to communicate and connect. Seeds is about honoring the humanity in each other, that which binds us to each other. We are about inclusion, regardless of status, education, or religious beliefs. It is about dignity and allowing those who cannot afford to pay for a meal the opportunity to volunteer in exchange for it. We never turn away a hungry person.