Earth Day Celebration at Fernie Senior's Centre

A celebration of Earth Day with Wildsight Elk Valley: local food, community action, and education.

All welcome!

SCHEDULE

• 7:00-7:30: Wildsight Elk Valley AGM & Board Elections
  • Recapping the organisation's past year of activities and electing the 2024-2025 Board of Directors.
• 7:30-8:00: 'Unbroken Ground' Film Screening
  • Experience the thought-provoking documentary "Unbroken Ground" by Patagonia. The film explores the critical role food plays in solving the environmental crisis and offers solutions to the path forward.
• INTERMISSION
• 8:15-8:45: Panel Discussion
  • A captivating discussion with local producers and growers about the important work they are doing within our local food system. See below for panelists.
• 8:45-9:00: Social & Raffle Draw
  • Learn about Wildsight Elk Valley's ongoing projects, volunteer opportunities, and ways to get involved in community initiatives.
  • Enjoy free snacks, mingle with fellow enthusiasts, and enter our raffle for a chance to win exciting local prizes.

This event is an opportunity to come together and celebrate a shared commitment to environmental stewardship. It's a chance to learn, connect, and take meaningful action for our planet.

Panelists:

Kye Kocher has been a farmer for 10 years, starting his journey into agriculture in Calgary where he farmed 1/4 of an acre and sold salad greens and herbs to restaurants and grocery stores. During that time he also helped build a farmer-owned cooperative which he was president of from 2016-2018. In 2020 he and his wife, Laura-Leigh, purchased a farm property in Jaffray where they live and grow now, selling under the farm's original name, Corner Veggies. 

Ashley Lortscher is a local food enthusiast who grew up in Fernie, BC. She has spent the last several years experimenting with different avenues of sustainable living; from developing a composting program that diverted over 30,000 lbs of food waste from landfills in a year to creating a small-scale organic poultry and vegetable farm. Ashley is currently working on developing a perennial berry farm in South Country, as well as creating a net-zero carbon home in Elko. 

Mary Cosman has been gardening in earnest for over 50 years and actively seed-saving since the early 1990s. She has been a grower/member of Seeds of Diversity Canada for 25 years. She joined the EcoGarden Advisory Committee upon moving to Fernie in 2005 and has coordinated gardener communications and the Garden2Market program as a grower and seller at the Mountain Market. She has been an Elk Valley Branch board member for 6 years. From spearheading annual seed swaps here since 2005, Mary has continued her seedy journey by co-creating and coordinating the Cold Climate Seed Library.

Dawn Deydey has over 2 decades of mountain gardening under her belt. She founded the Community EcoGarden, Mountain Market, Little Sprouts, Beyond Recycling, Keeping Food Real, ToolShare, Local store, Fernie Food Action Strategy, and Wildsight's new Evergreens Farm. Her ability to weave environmental education and community action into successful programming that moves our community towards a stronger food system has been proven repeatedly.