Do you love where you live? While you may feel spacey sometimes, it’s likely that you’re living life on our lovely planet earth. Give the earth some love this Earth Day and every day by celebrating Earth Day with your friends, family, and neighbors.

When Is Earth Day?

Mark your calendars! Every year, people celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd. This celebration doesn’t jump around like Father’s Day or Easter, so you’ll always know when to plan.

1. Host a Green Living Party or Parade

Spring and summer are the season of parades and outdoor parties. As you kick off the season of outdoor celebrations, shut down a street in your neighborhood and hold a kid-friendly, bike-friendly party. Invite a local beekeeper, gardener, or animal rescue society to show off what they do and get the children and other neighbors interested as well. Make your party as green as possible by serving local, organic food, aiming for low-waste treats, and composting and recycling when you can’t divert the waste. Your sustainable style could last through the rest of the summer party season.

2. Plan to Plant or Host a Clean Up

Earth day and the week around it is often a time when communities come together to clean up and upgrade their neighborhoods. Whether you’re planting bee and bird-friendly plants in a local lot or cleaning up a ravine, partner with other local organizations to increase your impact. Clean up and restoration organizations may have plants or equipment that you can borrow, and they can promote your event so that you’ll have plenty of volunteers. After your clean up or planting event, make sure that there’s a long term plan to keep the area clean or keep the plants watered and happy.

3. Celebrate Local Environmental Heroes

Earth Day is a wonderful day to hold an annual celebration of your neighbors’ year-round contributions to your local ecology. Do you know someone who is a dedicated animal rescue volunteer? Does your friend only throw out a bag of garbage a month? Does your elderly neighbor feed all of the birds in the neighborhood in the winter snow? Celebrate their successes, and use this celebration to fundraise for their favorite cause. Use them as an example, and others may follow enthusiastically.

4. Get to Know Your Local Ecosystems

To know a place is to love that place. Often, we’re so busy that we forget to enjoy the natural places that are right in our neighborhoods. Invite a local nature educator to take families on a walk to explore the natural places in your backyard. Use this to kick off a weekly or monthly family nature event, getting everyone outside through all of the months of the year.

Earth Day is only one day out of the year, but this special day can bring attention to the needs of your neighborhood wildlife and ecosystems. Use this opportunity to connect with nature and your neighbors, and you’ll find that Earth Day is every day in your neck of the woods.

Whether you’re looking for ideas to improve your home or your neighborhood, turn to Harry Helmet. Our innovative home solutions help make your life easier, so you’ll have more time to get out and enjoy your neighborhood.

Written by Del Thebaud