Environmental awareness is an extremely important topic and Earth Day is a great opportunity to spread climate education as well as many other environmental stewardship topics within the community. This year’s Earth Day celebration was quite different than years past. With the Covid-19 pandemic at a critical point the Whitley County extension office needed to improvise. The Extension Fine Arts Agent, Cortney Moses, has always strived to make the celebration a community partnership and this year was no different. Many local organizations contributed, including the Whitley County Health department, Whitley County Farmers Market, Save the Children, Whitley County Conservation District, and more. The Whitley County Extension office team was able to pitch in with program material from every area. The Agriculture and Natural resources program sourced more than 200 trees to be given away as well as natural resource guides and calendars, Fine Arts provided 150 earth awareness books for youth and adults, 4-H provided bags and put together online educational resources, and Family and Consumer Sciences and EFNEP packed in nutritional education along with tools for cooking and physical activity. Although everyone was unable to set up their booths and engage with the public as in years past we were given the opportunity to work together in new ways. With this challenge we found new strengths within our office as well as reaching a new audience in the community that has not been reached before through the Earth Day program.

Altogether, 150 families where reached through free Earth Day learning and activity bags. Bags were handed out at the extension office following CDC guidelines. The bags included rain gauges, seeds, eco-friendly arts activities, cooking utensils and farm fresh recipes, pedometers, online education resources for family learning and environmental awareness, over 200 trees, and much more!