Allyn's Creek Garden Club

In December 2023, inspired by disturbing news of plastic bags proliferating in our landfills, open spaces, waterways, oceans and threatening the health of marine animals, a club member brought us information about the NexTrex Recycling Challenge. We registered, set a 12-month collection period, and collected, weighed, recorded, and photographed 1000 pounds of plastic bag waste, earning a green Trex bench. Members bring bags to meetings or deposit them in collection boxes supplied by Nextrex, kept at three members homes, where they are compressed and submitted at participating stores. We were so motivated that we met our first goal in eleven months! We donated the bench to GreenVisions, a Workforce Development Project in the City of Rochester with whom we’ve worked since 2016. They also received the 2023 GCA Common Ground Grant. Beginning again in December of 2024, the energized members of Allyn’s Creek GC, their families, friends, and through outreach to businesses in the community, ha...

Dawn Borgeest (RGC President), Bill Smith (Town of Pittsford Supervisor), and Susan Murray (AGCG President) photo credit: Victoria Cherry The topic for our August 6 th   joint meeting with the Rochester Garden Club was "healthy yards." Bill Smith, Town of Pittsford Supervisor, surprised us with his attendance. He gave an eloquent testimonial about the healing power of being in nature and presented beautifully worded commendations to our two clubs for our century of leadership in environmental matters. We learned from Supervisor Smith that the Town of Pittsford uses in total for the entire town an equivalent amount of pesticides as what would be typically used on an individual 1/2 acre home site.

The Allyn’s Creek Garden Club was privileged to have a presentation on local recycling at our November General Meeting by Meagan Evans-Saurini, Environmental Educator for Monroe County Department of Environmental Services. Lots of great information can be found on their website:  https://www.monroecounty.gov/des-solidwaste                 and  https://www.monroecounty.gov/des-residentialrecycling Most of Monroe County’s recycling is in partnership with Waste Management, and there are two landfills in our county. Meagan explained the waste hierarchy upside-down pyramid, and that in our area, we generate about 5 pounds of garbage per person per day!    She gave us some great tips to avoid being ‘wishcyclers’ – putting things in recycling that we wish would be recycled but aren’t – and to prevent clogging the recycling machines: 1) things that aren’t recyclable include plastic pill bottles (those can be taken to EcoPark), plastic ...

 

In July, the Allyn’s Creek Garden Club was pleased to present Morgan Barry, the Green Visions Director of Workforce Development, with the Common Ground Collaborative grant recently awarded by the GCA. Green Visions plans to renovate the pictured building to hold classrooms and office space for the Program and the interns, which currently number eleven. The ACGC is excited to collaborate with Green Visions on instructing the interns in the areas of horticulture, floral design, conservation, and soil amendment.  Karen Boucher, Morgan Barry, Leslie Huey, and Susan Murray