Durham Earth Day

Durham Skateboard Park Groundbreaking Ceremony
Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 2 p.m. at the Earth Day Festival (Orange Street Mall)

View our Earth Day promotional video

Stream Clean-up Service Project

Site Map, Parking and Street Closures

About the Festival

Durham Earth Day Festival 2009
Date: Saturday April 25, 2009
Time: 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Location: CCB Plaza (201 Corcoran St.) and on Historic Parrish Street in Downtown Durham
Theme: Go Green

"Go Green" to this year’s celebration to enjoy great food and live music on the CCB Plaza. There will also be hands-on green activities and demos, the annual Earth Day Parade, and learn about many green practices and products at the Sustainability Expo and Earth Art Market. The Durham Earth Day Festival is presented by the City of Durham Parks and Recreation and Keep Durham Beautiful, Inc., in partnership with The Durham Skywriter, SEEDS, Eartheal, TROSA, the departments of Water Management and Solid Waste, the Durham Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission and the Division of Stormwater Services.

Earth Day Festival Sponsors

If you are interested in sponsoring the 2009 Durham Earth Day Festival please fill out and return the sponsorship packet below.

Earth Day Sponsorship Packet

Keep Durham Beautiful Logo TROSA Logo WNCU Logo Parrish Street Advocacy Group Logo City of Durham Logo

Gold Sponsors ($2,500)

The Herald Sun
Parrish Street Advocacy Group
TROSA
WNCU 90.7
WTVD ABC 11
Fox 50

Bronze Sponsors ($500)

Center Studio Architecture
Common Ground Green Building Center
Duke Energy
Durham Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Commission
Music Explorium
Museum of Life and Science
SEEDS

Friend ($250)

Counter Culture Coffee
Durham Bike Coop
Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau
Durham Marriott
RTI International
Self-Help
The Palace International
Triangle Transit

The Main Stage

Time	Event
11:45 a.m.	The Wigg Report
12:40 p.m.	Mayor William V. "Bill" Bell
12:45 p.m.	Durham Senior Divas and Dude
1 p.m.	William L. Chameides, Ph.D., Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment (Duke University)
1:15 p.m.	Respeto
1:25 p.m.	Carnavalito
2:30 p.m.	Eclipse Productions dance
3 p.m.	Creekside Children's Chorus
3:20 p.m.	Earth Day Parade
4 p.m.	The TROSA Band

Carnavalito

Carnavalito means "little carnival" and its energy is contagious! Carnavalito grabs hold of every Latin sound imaginable - mambos, sambas, cumbia and meringue - then explodes with what one reviewer calls "percussive fire" and "five-alarm salsa." Carnivalito is a musical feast with colors bursting to the beat. The band is as rich and eclectic as its music, with band members hailing from all corners of Latin America. Carnivalito has performed in venues and festivals throughout the region, including Spoleto, Bele Chere, Artsplosure and Atlanta’s Olympic Village.

The Wigg Report

The Wigg Report is made up of Christine Fantini, Stephen Mullaney and Ben Riseling. Armed with a guitar, the remains of a drum set and a saxophone, the Wigg Report has been setting up on street corners, in night clubs and anywhere that lets them play. Their guerrilla approach to playing has started to earn them recognition in Durham. Their first self-titled release was spawned in a tiny laundry room of their house where once neighbor, Ben Riseling, must have heard them and gained interest. This unavoidable collaboration has led not only to innovative uses of laundry equipment as acoustic devices but also to their first full length album, "Seltzer."
www.reverbnation.com/thewiggreport

TROSA Band

TROSA stands for Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers. The band consists of staff and residents of the program. The TROSA Band has been delighting and exciting crowds for over 10 years with their infectious upbeat and superbly rendered repertoire of Rock and Rhythm and Blues classics. TROSA continues to be a vital community partner in the Durham Earth Day Festival, and the TROSA band continues to be a festival highlight.
www.trosainc.org

The Durham Senior Divas and Dude

The Durham Senior Divas and Dude, sponsored by the Downtown Durham YMCA of the Triangle, continue to perform their high-spirited routines. They are the 2008 North Carolina State Senior Cheerleading Champions. They have performed and delighted crowds at events, celebrations, parades, conferences and community gatherings all around the Triangle, and were featured during this year’s halftime show at the M.E.A.C. basketball tournament at the RBC Center. They believe that you don't "Stop Playing Because you Grow Old - You Grow Old Because you Stop Playing." So sit back and watch the Durham Senior Divas and Dude "do their thing - their way."
www.durhamdivas.org

Creekside Children’s Chorus

The Creekside Children's Chorus is comprised of 4th and 5th grade students who gather for rehearsal in the morning before the school day begins. Each child gives their time and energy in an effort to learn about and produce quality music. The chorus is conducted by Valerie Merritt and accompanied by Brad Merritt.

Special Guest Speaker - William L. Chameides

William L. Chameides, PhD, is the Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Dr. Chameides's experience lies in global, regional, and urban-scale environmental change, causes, impacts, and paths toward sustainable development. According to Chameides, "We live in a time of great challenges and opportunities. Environmental, economic, political and technological changes are transforming our society and planet at a pace unprecedented in human history. They have brought us to a crossroads where the choice ahead is clear. We can either continue along the old, dead-end course that pits 'us versus them' and leads to increasing competition for diminishing resources, or we can work together to forge a new, sustainable path to the future."
www.nicholas.duke.edu

RESPETO

RESPETO is a Latino Youth Group from Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, that promotes youth leadership for social justice issues. They have a special interest in care of the environment and are working to educate the Latino community on recycling, energy conservation and home cleaning products.
www.icdurham.org

Eclipse Productions

Eclipse Productions is a talented group of young adults that bridge modeling, hip hop dance and modern dance to make one phenomenal dance troop. They are the combination of three FREE dance classes all offered at the Community and Family Life and Recreation Center at Lyon Park.

At the ECO Lounge

The ECO Lounge is a praxis and youth-based hub of Durham's Earth Day Festival located at the Green Stage on Parrish Street. It will be coordinated by the Bountiful Backyards Edible Landscaping Collective, DJ Piddipat and the Durham Skywriter. The Eco Lounge will be host to hands-on workshops based around homegrown food production, poetry, recycling, and re-understanding power from the sun. The Eco Lounge will also feature skateboarding, raising backyard chickens, grassroots music and culture, as well as square inch gardening how-to techniques. Bountiful Backyards and PJ Piddipat will create a dynamic venue where participants can interact, learn, teach, and exchange practical knowledge about sustainability and caring for our environment.

Boutiful Backyards Edible Landscaping Collaborative

Bountiful Backyards Edible Landscaping Collaborative

Bountiful Backyards is an edible landscaping collective with a radical vision for the future. It starts with the attainable ideal of transforming the relationship that people have with food and their communities. From kitchen gardens and composting to neighborhood scale orchards bursting with useful plants, the collective works with all demographics and strives to impart as much learning and knowledge to its growing client and resource database.

The organization believes that we should all grow some of our own food, becoming producers as opposed to simply consumers dependant on outside sources that may not always be there. Through attainable steps people can engage the social and biological elements that truly sustain us. These simple but thoughtful actions allow us to better understand the value of other workers and farmers also growing food while reducing our ecological impact locally and globally.
www.bountifulbackyards.com

DJ Piddipat

Patricia A. Murray hails from Chicago and has lived in Durham for eight years. A real Bull City booster, she publishes a free monthly, the Durham Skywriter, "Durham's community paper" and hosts Radio Skywriter every Saturday on WNCU90.7fm/wncu.org. Pat also plays a wide variety of music around town (and beyond) as DJ Piddipat.

DIG

Durham Inner-city Garners (DIG) is a youth-driven, urban farming leadership development program that empowers teens by teaching organic gardening, sound business practices, healthy food choices and food security values. The program emphasizes sustainable living and growing practices, ecological balance, and the natural recycling of organic materials for plant health and nourishment. DIG youth are paid a stipend to cultivate fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and mushrooms.
www.seedsnc.org/dig.htm

Freeman Ledbetter, Sun Space

Freeman Ledbetter is one of Durham’s finest and well known jazz musicians. He leads and plays stand up bass for Generations, a jazz ensemble of some of the Triangle’s most seasoned jazz musicians who are fiercely dedicated to the preservation of jazz music. Freeman is also dedicated to the presentation of the planet and the health of our community. As an architect and owner of Sun Space, Ltd, he specializes in design and installation of a variety of green technologies such as passive solar, daylighting, photovoltaic systems, solar water heating, active solar space heating and radiant floor heating. The festival is honored to have Freeman Ledbetter join us at The ECO Lounge to share his knowledge on the health benefits of solar energy to ourselves and our planet.

Ujamaa Boardhouse

Ujamaa Boardhouse is a skateboard retail shop located in downtown Durham at 111 W. Parrish St. Ujamaa opened its doors in late 2007 and has been serving the skaters of Durham ever since. Ujamma showcases a monthly artist and occasionally has live music in the store. They carry several different lines of earth friendly skateboards made of bamboo and hemp. Ujamma will also carry hemp and synthetic leather skate shoes and hemp clothing. Ujamaa Boardhouse will be presenting a free skateboard demo at the the festival’s Eco Lounge on Orange Street. There will be skating on obstacles made of scrap materials from construction sites. Check it out!

Backyard Hens in Durham

Learn the nuts and bolts of raising egg-laying hens in your own backyard, now that the City of Durham has passed an ordinance allowing Durham residents to raise hens. Experts will present valuable information on keeping healthy hens safely and in compliance with City regulations in your yard.

The Prometheus Bound Poets

The Prometheus Bound Poets are a group of urban youth working together under the guidance of Mark Greenstreet, an English and Public Speaking Teacher at Hillside High School. The Prometheus Bound Poets communicate their perspective on life through spoken word performance, and inspire audiences through relevancy, honesty, and verbal appeal. The Prometheus Bound Poets will be fresh off their performance at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on April 7.

At the Kids Zone

Environmental education has been a key feature of the Earth Day Festival since 2000. The tradition continues with hands-on activities from Paperhand Puppet Intervention, the Museum of Life and Science, Urban Earth, DPR Adventure Programs, Explore Rhythms, Garden Clubs of Durham and other cultural resources in our community. Kids will have a blast while engaging with the natural world and resources through hands-on activities, percussion, craft-making, storytelling and dynamic presentations.

Urban Earth

Urban Earth is an educational program that teaches young people about the natural world through hands-on activities, observation, and exploration. This program is offered Monday through Friday at the SEEDS garden to children from school groups, community groups, or other organizations. Urban Earth will be bringing its dynamic hands-on programs from its home at SEEDS on Gilbert Street to the Kids Zone again this year.

Paperhand Puppet Intervention

Paperhand Puppet Intervention is celebrating its 10th year in the world. Since 1999 they have been creating giant puppet plays and pageants, leading huge colorful parades, performing at festivals and in schools, and working hard to make the world a better place. Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger co-created and co-founded Paperhand with inspiration and support from their friends, families, ancestors, and the fantastically beautiful planet they call home. Its mission is to make art that celebrates life's gifts and speaks directly to the human heart.
www.paperhand.org

Explore! Rhythms

Music Explorium creates hands-on rhythm events for fun, education and community building. Creative reuse artist and percussionist Shannon Morrow assists participants in using junk to make musical instruments. Make your own drums and percussion, learn some funky parade beats and proudly take part in the Earth Day parade.
www.musicexplorium.com

The Durham Earth Day Parade

The Annual Durham Earth Day Parade will be led by Donovan Zimmerman of Paper Hand Puppet Intervention, and followed this year by new community groups and features organized by Shannon Morrow of The Scene of the Crime Rovers, and Music Explorium. Staging for the parade will begin at 3 p.m. sharp on the 100 block of Corcoran Street, and the parade will begin at 3:30 p.m. sharp! This is an eco-event - no motor vehicles; bikes and small floats are welcome as long as the floats are human-propelled. We encourage creative reuse and sturdy construction with any earth-friendly material for any costumes, banners, or small floats you'd like to bring with you. Contact Shannon Morrow, parade coordinator, by e-mail at learnaboutlistening@yahoo.com or call (919) 680-0129 for information.

Garden Clubs of Durham

The Garden Clubs of Durham present "Natural and Recycled Craft Making." Join these industrious and resourceful women to learn a variety of green crafts, to learn how to make flowers from sweet gum balls or panty hose, re-use an old milk carton to grow your own bean plant, fashion a pair of earrings out of everyday natural and reuse-able household items, or make a foot stool from a large vegetable can. Members of the Garden Clubs of Durham will also have a table to sell some of their own fine handmade crafts.

The Museum of Life and Science

The Museum of Life and Science is a world-class science center and the smart choice for learning and fun. Interactive inside and out, the museum’s 70+ acre campus is home to hundreds of exhibits, including one of the east coast’s largest butterfly conservatories; a nature park with bears, wolves and lemurs; a giant radio-controlled sailboat pond; and a railroad – just to name a few.

The museum is excited to be part of the 2009 Earth Day Festival. Visit the booth and learn more about some of the sustainability efforts to make the campus greener. Thinking about creating a rain garden at your home? There will be helpful tips to get you started. Did you know that the museum’s wetlands is home to a diverse population of plants and animals? Discover more about this amazing ecosystem with museum staff and volunteers through hands-on activities.
www.ncmls.org

The Play House

The Play House is a locally-owned independent specialty toy store in business for 22 years. The Play House provides quality USA-made and imported toys, for all ages.
www.playhousetoys.com

DPR Adventure Programs

Durham Parks and Recreation Adventure Programs provides a variety of programs for individuals or groups to experience outdoor and adventure recreation in a safe and supportive environment. Opportunities for outdoor experiences include: mountain biking, canoeing and kayaking, hiking and camping, teen adventure camp, teambuilding and ropes course programs, and outdoor skills classes such as Leave No Trace and map and compass.

The Kids Zone

Time	Event
12:20 p.m.	Storytelling with Louise Omoto Kessel
1 p.m.	Storytelling with Louise Omoto Kessel
1:30 p.m.	Classical Indian Dance workshop and performance
2:40 p.m.	Paperhand Puppet Intervention - puppet show
3 p.m.	Staging for parade
3:30 p.m.	Durham Earth Day Festival Parade

Beloved storyteller Louise Omoto Kessel will be in the Kids Zone at 12:20 p.m. and 1 p.m.

Environmental education has been a key feature of the Earth Day Festival since it was reborn here in Durham in 2000 and the tradition continues with hands-on activities from the Paperhand Puppet Invention, Museum of Life and Science, Urban Earth, DPR Adventure Programs, Explore Rhythms, and more. Learn about the natural world and resources through hands-on activities.

Prema Natya Vidyalaya (The Dance School of Divine Love)

Bharata-Natyam, literally meaning the dance of India, is an ancient classical art form. Originally performed in the inner sanctums of India's great temples, it now comes to audiences around the world, bringing delight and joy to all who watch it. It is an intriguing art form that combines music, rhythm, facial expressions, and hand gestures to tell stories from the great epics of India, as well as to show beauty in movement. Every Bharata-Natyam dance student knows the importance of honoring the earth, for the first thing a student learns is the Bhumi-namaskara, meaning the salutation (namaskara) to the earth (Bhumi). As dancers, we aknowledge the earth for giving us a surface for dancing upon, for giving us her strength, and for bearing our heavy steps on her. Thus in the culture of classical Indian dance, this prayer to the earth is done at the beginning and end of every dance practice or performance.
www.premanatyaschool.com

The Eco-Lounge - schedule of presentations*

Time	Event
11:45 a.m.	Music from around the globe - DJ Piddipat
12 p.m.	Greening Durham's Earth Day Festival - Juliet Jensen and Larrisha McGill, City of Durham
12:15 p.m.	Growing Annual Vegetables and Composting - Bountiful Backyards
12:30 p.m.	Conserving Water, Eco-teens and Rain Barrels - (YIKES!) Youth Involved in Keeping Earth Sustainable
12:45 p.m.	Durham Government Going Green - Tobin Freid, Durham Sustainability Manager
1 p.m.	Seed Saving and Biodiversity - DIG (Durham Inner-city Gardeners)
1:30 p.m.	Community Gardening Projects - Alease Bess, CWV (Community Wholeness Venture)
1:45 p.m.	Foraging medicinal and Edible Herbs in the Wild - Will Endres, Wild Will's Herbs
2 p.m.	Skate-able Art and Skateboarding Demo - Nik Spaulding, Ujamaa Boardhouse
2:15 p.m.	Bio-diesel Fuel - Mark Dreyfors, Carolina Biofuels
2:30 p.m.	Retrofit & green your home - Rebekah and Stephen Wren, authors of "Carbon-Free Homes"
2:45 p.m.	Community Gardening Projects - David Harper, Land in Common
3 p.m.	iReciclamos! - Recycling in the Latino Community - RESPETO Youth Group
3:15 p.m.	Solar Energy: Health for People & the Planet - Freeman Ledbetter, Sun Spaces
3:30 p.m.	Earth Poems - Prometheus Bound Poets from Hillside High School
3:45 p.m.	Durham Earth Day Parade
4:15 p.m.	Biking for Health and Sustainability - Durham Bike Co-op
4:30 p.m.	Alternative Energy and Home Scale Economics - Watts Energy Group

*Some programs and times may vary.

Interactive discussions will include:
"Hens in Durham! – Learn how to grow your own eggs."
"The Importance of Recycling - a bilingual discussion with some of Durham’s Latino Youth Environmentalists."

Festival Highlights

Durham Earth Day Parade

Make a parade percussion instrument, dress up as your favorite plant or animal and join Paperhand Puppet Intervention and Explore Rhythms for a rousing parade. Please be on-site by 3 p.m., the parade will start at 3:30 p.m. sharp.

Earth Art Market

Enjoy browsing and shopping for local, hand-made green goods, crafts and environmental art at the Earth Art Market. A variety of local and regional artists will be selling their natural crafts and green wares.

Eco-Lounge

Learn what you can do to go green this year at the Eco Lounge. Relax in and purchase a second-hand chair or sofa from the TROSA store. Talk with local experts about urban greening. Find out what Durham youth are doing about sustainability issues and the climate crisis. Put your actions into words at a poetry workshop, and dance to music from around the globe. Green your ride with skateboarding demos. The Eco-Lounge will feature: Bountiful Backyards, architect and musician Freeman Ledbetter, Hillside High School’s Prometheus Bound, DJ Piddipat, Dig, SEEDS, YIKES! (Youth Involved in Keeping Earth Sustainable), Durham Parks and Recreation, TROSA Store, Respeto, Ujamaa Boardhouse, and the Durham Skywriter.

GreenDurham.net Earth Month Photography Show

The Green Durham Photo Competition winners will be on display at Blue Coffee Café during the festival. The City-County Sustainability Office has also been instrumental in organizing over 30 eco-themed events in Durham throughout the month of April as part of Durham’s "Earth Month." The full calendar of events and details about the photo contest are at all Durham libraries and at www.greendurham.net.

"Go Green" Active Transportation Expo

Go green and bike, walk, skate, carpool or ride DATA and Triangle Transit to the Durham Earth Day Festival. The Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee is hosting downtown Durham’s first ever Valet Bike Parking Service at the festival – ride in and check your bicycle for free. For bike and walking trails to downtown go to www.bikewalkdurham.org. Go green by riding DATA or Triangle Transit. Plan your eco-friendly bus trip to the festival site (201 N. Corcoran St.) with trip planner at www.gotriangle.org. Looking to green your ride? Come learn about bio-diesel, view top-rated hybrid cars, get your bike tuned or get a recycled board at the Go Green Active Transportation Expo.

Historic Parrish Street Markers & The Parrish Street Project

On October 15, 2008 three of the eventual six markers were placed in the Parrish Street area (the site for this year’s Durham Earth Day Festival.) These markers are sculptural in form and include text that educates about the history of the area once referred to as "Black Wall Street." The markers include symbols that are a part of African culture. The Durham Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) is spearheading an initiative to commemorate the legacy of Durham's Black Wall Street and spur economic revitalization. In collaboration with the Parrish Street Advocacy Group (PSAG), the OEWD plan on creating and supporting a vibrant commercial district in downtown Durham, where visitors and residents can learn why Durham was known as the nation's "Black Wall Street," in the early decades of the 20th century.www.durhamnc.gov/departments/eed/parrish.

Keep Durham Beautiful Earth Day Raffle – Go Green Products

Buy a raffle ticket for a chance to win great prizes. Prizes include a rain barrel, gift certificates to area restaurants, event tickets, a compost bin, a water filter kit, fine art and many green items donated by Earth Day participants and local businesses.

Sustainability Expo

Visit the exposition area along Durham’s historic Parrish Street for green and environmentally friendly businesses and organizations to sell and share green products, green services, energy, transportation, building, home and personal products, gardening, clean water, and a variety of green services.

Zero-Waste Project

Festival goers and vendors will go green when they go to throw out their trash. They will be directed to a "Zero-Waste" station to sort it into recycling, reuse, compost, trade table, and lastly the trash can! "It's easy being green" with the Zero-Waste project for a trash-free festival.

Stream Clean-ups

Volunteer to do your part to clean up Durham's streams. This annual Earth Day service project, 9 a.m. - 11 a.m. on the day of the festival, links community volunteers with neighborhood streams.

2009 Clean-up Sites:

Eno River at Snow Hill Road and Old Oxford Highway
South Ellerbe Creek Greenway at Green and Ruffin streets
Northeast Creek at Parkwood Library
Third Fork Creek at Forest Hills Park
Ellerbe Creek at 574 Primitive Street
Warren Creek at Whippoorwill Park

Stream clean-ups are a great way to get your family or civic group involved in a hands-on Earth Day service project. Keeping litter out of our waterways improves water quality, protects aquatic animals, and beautifies our city. All volunteers will be furnished with work gloves, trash bags, and refreshments. Trash will be picked up the following week by City or County personnel. After the clean-up, volunteers can go to the Durham Earth Day Festival for more family fun and refreshment. For information contact Laura Webb-Smith at (919) 560-4326, ext. 235.

Vendors

Applications are available.

Solicidud para Comerciantes en espanol Earth Day.

Volunteers

Volunteer Form

Earth Day Volunteer Job Descriptions

On April 25, Durham Parks and Recreation and Keep Durham Beautiful, Inc., needs over 100 volunteers to help with the festival. You will receive a pass to the volunteer hospitality lounge. To volunteer, contact Laura Smith at Laura.Smith@durhamnc.gov or 560-4326 ext. 235, or Mal Atkinson at Malgosia.Atkinson@durhamnc.gov or 560-4355. You may also download and print the application from the main Calendar of Events page. Mail to Durham Parks and Recreation, Attn: Mal Atkinson, 101 City Hall Plaza, Durham, NC 27701.

Site Map/Parking and Street Closures

Downtown Durham Parking Lots

Street Closures (closed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.)

Market Street
Orange Street
Corcoran Street (from W. Main St. to E. Chapel Hill St.)
Parrish Street (from Market St. to Mangum St.)

From 3:30 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. the Durham Police Department will temporarily close E. Chapel Hill Street, from Foster to Rigsbee Street for the Earth Day Parade.

Earth Day Site Map

Earch Day Trail Map

Contact Information

Juliet Jensen, festival coordinator
Chris Shepard, Kid’s Zone
Breanna Warren, vendor coordinator
Mal Atkinson and Laura Smith, volunteer coordinators
Juliet Jensen, sponsorships

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