Green Day

There was a kinder, gentler time in America that had nothing to do with any member of the Bush family. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, while the plumbers burgled the Watergate, student protesters of the Vietnam War were gunned down on college campuses and newly liberated women burned their bras in the streets, a quiet riot of peace, love and international unity struggled for recognition. Coca-Cola tried to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, organizers of Hands Across America urged people to stand on the sidewalk and grip-and-grin with their neighbors while conservationists and tree-huggers, led by Dennis Hayes in 1970, created Earth Day.

If you’re approaching geezer-hood, you remember that time. If not, your parents probably mentioned their fond-if-foggy memories. Or you may be one of a new generation of ecology nuts. Lucky for you, the earth-loving movement has never quite died out, and two local organizations have stretched their hands across Dallas to offer a big family picnic-styled outing called EarthFest for the Metroplex on Saturday. The DFW Green Alliance is paying your admission to the Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park, so, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., dozens of free, hands-on, outdoor activities are yours for the taking.

The DFW Green Alliance supports all manner of natural wonders and eco-friendly programs and is an active network of resource-sharing organizations, many of which will offer demonstrations and activities throughout the day at EarthFest. “We activate, educate and empower the community for a healthy planet,” says Susan Gregory, 2004 EarthFest event director. “We don’t lean to one extreme or another,” she says. “We advocate finding a new way of doing things instead of beating people up about doing things wrong. We build relationships and engage people in more healthy, positive ways of living.”

Texas Discovery Gardens puts green ideas to work every day, but the organization’s contributions to EarthFest include tours of specialized gardens, tadpole and turtle ponds, butterfly-attracting plant exhibits and horticulture experts for Q&A’s. “This is the perfect location for the celebration of Mother Earth,” Bonnie Bradshaw, TDG spokeswoman, says. “For EarthFest, our guests will be surrounded by beneficial insects, critters, migrating birds and all the magic of Mother Nature.” Bradshaw says that TDG, as the first certified organic public garden in Texas, offers educational programs and exhibits that teach children and adults how to provide vital habitats for butterflies and other native Texas wildlife, create beauty with native plants and restore the natural environment in urban areas. “We’ll have exhibitors to talk about recycling and composting,” she says, “but, better than that, kids can dig in compost and find earthworms during EarthFest and listen to Native American storytellers celebrate our relationship with the earth inside a giant tepee.”

EarthFest exhibitors include most of the 40 member organizations of the DFW Green Alliance and friends of TDG. All exhibits offer more than “pieces of paper,” Gregory says. “Solar Wind Technologies, for example, will set up a solar panel that will power our music stage,” she says. At 10:45 a.m., local environmental activist and musician Annie Bradshaw will help children and parents make musical instruments from recycled materials and lead the Shake Along With Annie folk-rock concert at 1 p.m. The DFW Wildlife Coalition will offer rescue and care information on urban wildlife, and the Dallas Storm Water Management Department will demonstrate its award-winning interactive exhibit on preventing poisonous runoff and pollution of White Rock Lake.