- Author: Debi Durham, UC Master Gardener of Butte County
For 47 years the Butte Environmental Council (BEC) has been instrumental in initiating, supporting, and teaching sound environmental practices in our area. Clearly it is worth knowing a little more about this important local organization and its programs, which align well with a number of the goals of the Master Gardeners, perhaps especially the Master Gardener Living Labs school science program.
The BEC initiated a multi-use recycling program in 1977: community members could drop off glass, tin, aluminum, cardboard, and newspaper, or have these recyclables picked up curbside for a monthly fee of $1. This service was eventually sold to North Valley Disposal in 1988, allowing BEC to shift its focus to education, advocacy, and action.
Fast forwarding to today, we can see how much BEC has grown. It has become a multi-faceted grassroots non-profit organization with the mission of protecting and defending the land, air and water of Butte County and the surrounding region through action, advocacy, and education.
This past April, the BEC held an Endangered Earth Parade and Rally to honor 43 years of its Endangered Species Faire. The Faire brought young and old together for environmental education through various activities including puppet shows, music, educational booths, and interactive exhibits. Reimagined and repurposed, the Endangered Earth Parade and Rally sought to bring attention to the impact humans have on the planet and all of its inhabitants, not just endangered species.
A September ritual is the annual cleanup of Bidwell Park and Chico Creeks hosted by the BEC. This year marked the 35th anniversary of the Cleanup. Teaming with the City of Chico, Butte County, and the Great Sierra River Cleanup, more than 500 community volunteers removed not only trash but recyclables and harmful materials from the park and creeks at nearly 100 cleanup sites. Items were delivered to drop-off locations and then separated into CRV aluminum, CRV plastic, CRV glass, glass, plastic, and hazardous materials. In 2021 the annual cleanup removed 21.48 tons of trash and debris from the park and creeks.
The BEC's RARE program focuses on recycling and rubbish education for grades K-12. Workshops are offered on-site or virtually and geared to clubs, community groups, and after-school programs. Focusing on the four R's (reduce, reuse, recycle, or rot / compost), workshops vary in focus: examples include creating a worm bin or learning an upcycling craft.
Another educational BEC workshop geared for students of any age is the Community Air Protection Education Program (CAPE). Fun, interactive activities educate participants on their personal impact on air quality, empowering students with an understanding of the importance of clean air quality, as well as steps to take to soften their greenhouse gas footprint.
BEC also plants trees in Chico, expanding the “urban forest” through its ReLeaf program. And the organization's allied Planting Literacy in Environmental Action and Stewardship Education (Trees PLEASE) program runs workshops on proper tree planting along with education on the many benefits of trees, including deterring greenhouse gases and improving air quality. 75 trees will be planted on Chico K-12 campuses and in Chico Area Recreation & Park District (CARD) parks by the end of the year through this program.
The Oak Way Community Garden next to the Oak Way Community Park is managed by the BEC. On this well-tended half-acre site, 40 individual plots are maintained by families growing food, flowers, medicinal plants, and fiber.
38 years ago, when my then-young daughter and I hauled our bottles, jars, and cans to BEC on a monthly recycling pilgrimage, we could not have known that the organization would grow into a such vital force in the community. While BEC is not a horticultural hub and offers no demonstration gardens to “ooh and ahh” over, its educational and environmental advocacy and multiple programs have provided our community with decades of inspiration and practical knowledge. By giving us all a gentle nudge to walk softly on our planet, we learn that by nurturing a sustainable garden space we are helping “to protect and defend the land, air and water of Butte County.”
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area, visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu or leave a phone message on our Hotline at (530) 538-7201. To speak to a Master Gardener about a gardening issue, or to drop by the MG office during Hotline hours, see the most current information on our Ask Us Hotline webpage.
A vacant lot on a residential street is a common sight that goes unnoticed, except when the vacant lot is repurposed and transformed into a community garden. Research shows that community gardens offer a host of benefits for neighborhoods, including improvement of the physical and mental health of patrons, creation of community partnerships and educational opportunities, provision of fresh, locally grown food, and strikingly, reduction in neighborhood crime.
Use of the formerly vacant lot that is now Kentfield Gardens is the gift of a neighborhood resident who owns the lot and lives across the street. This generous individual even pays for the water used for the garden. Funding for improvements to the property (like the covered seating area and outdoor kitchen) as well as ongoing maintenance comes from donations and grants.
Wendy LeMaster, who has a BA in microbiology from CSU Chico, oversees the youth programs at Kentfield Gardens and has volunteered there since its inception. In the beginning her hope was “to provide kids with an opportunity to learn gardening skills while enjoying each other's company in an outdoor environment, which allowed them to socialize after a long period of time when they weren't able to, due to the pandemic.” Since then, she says, the program called Kentfield Kids has expanded and become “a community for parents, friends, family and little ones to come together and enjoy nutritious foods, share recipes, gardening techniques, giggles and more.”
LeMaster says that GROWN encompasses much of what she had already been doing at Kentfield, with a few changes: “I've modified my program to reflect a hybrid of the Teen Group and our Young Bud group, providing an hour of mentorship opportunity for our teens to work with our younger gardeners. Each group still has an hour of fun activity focused on their age group, and as always, this program remains free and families are still welcome to join us. The only other thing that's changed is now I get to bring these garden programs to schools throughout the county…. GROWN is a Butte County Local Food Network Project, which has been made possible by a generous grant awarded to BCLFN through the county, and I'm excited to see what we can accomplish.”
The Butte County Local Food Network lists eight community gardens on its website. Among them is Vecino Garden in Chico, located at 1535 Laburnum Avenue in the backyard of a private residence. This 1/3 acre property contains garden beds, fruit trees, a greenhouse, a neighborhood composting center, and a shaded seating area.
As of January 1, 2022, California has a new, statewide mandatory organic waste collection law aimed at reducing methane emissions by diverting organic waste from landfills (SB 1383). The county of Butte has a year and a half to develop a plan to implement the law, but Vecino Garden is already teaching and promoting neighborhood composting, funded by a grant from CalRecycle implemented through California Alliance for Community Composting.
According to Caitlin Dalby, Executive Director of the Butte Environmental Council, neighborhood gardeners rent plots in Oak Way Garden for 50 cents per square foot, paid to the City to cover the cost of water. The yearly cost of a plot 25 by 25 feet is about $312 per year; a plot 15 by 15 feet is about $112/year, and the garden always has a waiting list.
Dalby says the garden was created to enable people to grow fresh food and to promote urban gardening as part of a healthy lifestyle. In addition, Oak Way Garden offers a composting program through Drop in the Bucket Bicycle Powered Compost Service. The service picks up compostable food scraps from nearby neighborhoods and brings the materials to Oak Way Garden via bicycle for composting at the garden.
How many more unused plots of land in Butte County could be transformed into productive gardens? The Butte Environmental Council hopes to locate properties in other neighborhoods for additional community gardens. And, Dalby says, the Council is also involved in a wide range of projects including tree planting, recycling, composting, K-12 educational outreach and coalition building.
Consensus about the value of community gardens continues to grow. A 2020 big-picture review of 45 studies conducted by researchers at Cornell University concluded that “properly designed and maintained outdoor green space (including community gardens) has the potential to reduce violent crime and gun violence, to make communities safer and keep residents healthier” (Green space can reduce violent crime - Neuroscience News).
For more information, see the following resources:
Project for Public Spaces: Beyond Food: Community Gardens as Places of Connection and Empowerment (pps.org)
Butte County Local Food Network: Butte County Local Food Network (bclocalfood.org)
Butte Environmental Council: Butte Environmental Council (becnet.org)
GROWN: Growing Resilient Optimism With Nature – Butte County Local Food Network (bclocalfood.org)
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area, visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu or leave a phone message on our Hotline at (530) 538-7201. To speak to a Master Gardener about a gardening issue, or to drop by the MG office during Hotline hours, see the most current information on our Ask Us Hotline webpage.