Red Deer, Alberta's Kerry Wood Nature Centre is committed to providing quality environmental education for people of all ages. "Our programming is for people from 0 to 99," says Special Events Assistant Kathryn Huedepohl. "It's a good family place."
Kathryn often surfs the web to find initiatives and activities that will fit in with the centre's programming. It was on one of those surfing expeditions that she stumbled upon the Project Porchlight website.
Impressed with the campaign's emphasis on education and awareness, Kathryn and her colleagues got in touch with Project Porchlight and offered to help out. While we were in town this April for our Red Deer campaign, the Kerry Wood Nature Centre stored our CFLs, and hosted a media blitz and volunteer training session.
"We thought (Project Porchlight) was a great initiative," says Kathryn. "Energy saving is good any way you put it."
One of the Kerry Wood Nature Centre's goals is to be a leader in energy conservation. In addition to using CFLs wherever they can, the centre's staff had energy-efficient furnaces and a solar power set-up installed. They also maintain an environmental blog called Natural Selections that features "a little bit of everything."
For those interested in learning how you can make a difference, Kathryn recommends several websites, including: Mother Earth News, saving simply, EcoKids and Planet Pals.
"It's the only planet we have," says Kathryn. "If we don't take care of it, we're going to be in trouble."
