Free Sustainability Fair-We Need Your Help!

We are going to need all of your help on SATURDAY, APRIL 25TH, so please save the date!

Sellwood Middle School is planning a free Sustainability Fair that day from 10-2, and they have asked the Sellwood Playgroup Association to participate as part of a community partnership. This is a great opportunity for the playgroups to support the older children in our community as well as to introduce our kids to one of their future school options. Exciting things are happening at the middle school, including the building of a greenhouse to raise native plants for Johnson Creek Park and Oaks Bottom and possibly to grow vegetables for the school's lunch program. The plan is also for the greenhouse to be available for use by the community during the summers. The Sustainability Fair (part of a grant by SE Uplift) is the kick-off event for the greenhouse, but will have a lot of other great activities, too, and the planners are very focused on having things for young children to do at the event. There are a number of ways you can participate in the days ahead as well as on the 25th, so please look them over and let me know which things you can do:

1) Help with set up, clean up, or staffing a SPA craft booth on the 25th. The slots will be one hour shifts running from 9:30 am- 2:30 pm (9:30-10 and 2-2:30 are for set-up and clean-up)--just email me or call me (my contact information is below) to let me know which shift you can cover Please let me know one back-up in case your preferred time is full. Think about signing up with a friend! It will be a great chance to catch up with friends and neighbors. There will be middle school students trained by the Red Cross in babysitting assisting children with crafts--we need adults to help keep the booth organized, answer questions, supervise a veggie-vehicle ramp and help children with crafts. We may be working with a volunteer from SCRAP on crafts they have organized, or may be running a children's recycled craft booth on our own. Please plan to have a friend or partner available to watch your children while you work your shift--maybe pair up with a friend to switch shifts and childcare responsibilities. Your children are welcome to work on crafts while you do your shift, but someone should be available in case they finish before you are done or are drawn to another area of the fair while you are still supervising the booth.

2) We also need some things! Do you have a child's table and chairs we could borrow for our youngest crafters? Having some child-sized work areas set up would help them participate fully. We could use a bale of straw donated--I think they're about $15 at Witchita Hardware. We also need a large plank or board if anyone has one around that could be used as a ramp (like the veggie ramp at the Muddy Boot festival if anyone has been). Please let me know if you can meet any of these needs. I may send out another email as we get closer to the date if we need craft supplies like scissors to borrow, glue, etc. or need a pre-fair work party to prepare materials.

3) Help with decorations (see below).

4) Attend! This is going to be a fun community event for family members of all ages. Plan to spend some time at the fair making crafts, seeing demonstrations, enjoying music and finding out information about sustainable living. The event planners are discussing milk-carton planting for kids, a puppet show or recycled-materials puppet-making with Mudeye Puppets, multiple music performances and other kid-friendly activities.

If you can't attend on the 25th, please help us with prep work and decorations in advance. Plan a craft day with your child to make some of the following recycled crafts to help decorate the SPA craft table:

Love Stems
(If they survive the day, 'love stems' will be delivered to Sellwood Landing Assisted Living for May Day after the fair is over)

Flower Garland

Peanut garland

Deliver your crafts to my house the week of April 20th (email for address or directions). Thank you!

We look forward to hearing from all of you about how you can help SPA and Sellwood Middle School make this a successful event for our community. Thank you in advance!
Kirstin McAuley
SPA co-founder and '05 Coordinator
ktmcauley@gmail.com