By Sheyla Torres
Here’s your chance to get outdoors with your family and celebrate Earth Day this weekend.
Huntington’s Earth Day celebration at Manor Farm Park will feature raffles and giveaways, plantings, disposable services, and more. The event is free, open to all ages, and co-sponsored by Huntington Town Councilmembers Joan Cergol and Salvatore Ferro, the Town of Huntington, Covanta, and Starflower Experiences.
“Huntington’s Earth Day celebration proves that education and environmental responsibility can be fun,” Ferro said. “We want everyone to have a great time at Manor Farm and to go home thinking about how we can protect and preserve Long Island’s incredible ecosystem.”
Starflower Experiences will facilitate garden planting, composting, and beekeeping demonstrations. There will also be face painting and arts and crafts booths for kids, as well as an exhibit of formerly wild animals, which will be hosted by Volunteers for Wildlife. The Town of Huntington Maritime Department will also have demonstrations on water chemistry and conservation.
Among the activities, there will be a marine touch tank operated by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, which preserves heritage, protects ecosystems, supports families, and provides youth opportunities for research-based education in science, technology, engineering, and math.
All who attend will have the chance to receive a raffle ticket and the chance to win electric-powered landscaping equipment, as well as a string trimmer/leaf blower combo kit, a compost tumbler with a cart, a lawnmower, and a pressure washer. The equipment was provided by a donation of $2,500 from Covanta. For those not interested in the landscaping equipment, there will also be a chance to win a birdhouse donated by the Love of Learning Montessori School in Centerport.
Other giveaways will include bare root tree saplings provided by the Long Island Native Plant Initiative, which all attendees will receive. Volunteers from Robert M. Kubecka Memorial Town Garden will be giving away vegetables and flower seedlings as well.
Free disposable services will be available to residents to dispose of e-waste, medical pills, and shred paper through The Shreduction, the Town’s Environmental Waste Management Department, and the Suffolk County Police Department’s Operation Medicine Cabinet.
The event will be held on Saturday, April 23, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is not required but is available through the Huntington website.
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