I woke up last Saturday morning around 6:30 a.m., an early Saturday for me. The sun was shining, and the spring air and morning bird sounds floated through the window.

After a long winter, spring is as welcome as the sunrise. Sometimes, at this new-season-time of year, the excitement is enough to move you — up, outside, and into air that’s begging to be breathed. Without that late-winter hoodie, I might add.

Earth Day seems a day to celebrate, despite the doom and gloom of everything falling apart around us. When we stop celebrating what’s left, and what’s worth saving, we enter into a land of deep, deep trouble. I’m convinced that there are enough of us willing to avoid this frightening place that the celebrations will continue, and we will spread awareness about small and big things we can all do to help protect this amazing place.

This blog is exciting as a potential vehicle for such discussions, a message board for events, and as a place that this community can share ideas with one another.

Saturday morning was April 19, and the Honest Weight Food Co-op was celebrating our annual Earth Day Festival at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany. First on my mind were eggs that needed cracking, and coffee waiting to drip. Our Earth Day Festival combines food, music, information, a film series, and community — all centered around the idea of caring for our Earth in real and simple ways.

The kitchen at FUUSA is dreamy: well organized, with counter tops to chop on, and almost every serving dish, cutting board and soup pot imaginable lining the walls and pantry. Equally important, there is a great space for at least 100 people to sit at tables and share a meal together.

Just down the hall is a new, green-built addition called Emerson Hall. On Saturday morning it was filled with more than a dozen info-tables: organizations, local businesses and individuals committed to making our part of the Earth a better place. Some farmer friends from Sap Bush Hollow Farm and Fox Creek Farm came to talk about grass-fed and finished meats and their CSA program, respectively; others, ranging from the Mohawk and Hudson Humane Society, to solar power ecopreneur Dennis Phayre, shared services and exciting ideas.

I was in the kitchen, preparing food for several hundred lunch-goers throughout the day. Preparing a meal for this amount of people takes lots of planning, but I had two best friends with me (six hands!) and the support of at least a dozen amazing co-workers and co-op members dropping by throughout the day, who had also worked all week to make this Local Foods Café happen.

Chicken soup and black bean soup (made with New York-grown black beans) went from the freezer to the burner. The soups contained locally grown carrots and parsnips, and some of last summers herbs, now dried and perfect for seasoning. Michele was slicing local onions, while Brad had the Story Farms potatoes in the skillet, with lots of organic olive oil, for the tortilla de patatas — a traditional Spanish omelet that combines eggs (our were from pasture-raised chickens from the Hudson Valley) with the aforementioned potatoes and onions. Local business Vegan Creations made some delicious hummus spreads, served alongside a local garlic goat cheese with Rockhill Bakehouse loaves of bread. Knight Orchard’s cider, fair-trade coffees and teas (fair trade ensures we’re supporting small farmers in all parts of our big world) were put out to drink.

Sourcing food locally and sustainably has a huge — and positive — impact on the environment. We’re not expending precious resources on trucking food from one coast (or country) to another, and we’re supporting diverse agricultural systems, thereby protecting local jobs, livelihoods and land.

Some of the farms we do business with are certified organic: This guarantees chemical- and pesticide-free products, and land that’s cared for according to strict environmental guidelines. Others, while not certified organic, are committed to preserving their farmland and protecting their customers.

Either way, there is safety in knowing where and how something is made or grown. Small-scale farm diversity prevents toxic run-off from entering our water systems, a sad by-product of large poultry and meat production and large-scale, mono-culture agriculture. Knowing where your food comes from also allows you to make choices. At Honest Weight, for instance, all of our dairy and other animal products are free of rGBH, hormones and antibiotics — environmental pollutants that could have potentially scary health effects on consumers.


Seeing food celebrations come together with the help of friends and work crews, sharing our consciousness about food choices with the hundreds of families and friends who visited our café that day, was beautiful. In the kitchen and dining room both, it was a celebration of all that Mother Earth has provided for us.

The image has stuck with me all week, reminding me of the amazing community around which my work is centered.

So, while the phrase “Earth Day, every day” may be cliché, I have to argue that it is, right now, vital. The complex, global crisis we face ecologically progresses day after day. We must combat this trend with daily actions, however simple, and continue to be inspired by what’s on our plates, and by sharing it with one another.

About the author: Karisa Centanni is the education coordinator at the Honest Weight Food Co-op, a member owned and operated natural foods grocery store on Central Avenue in Albany. For more information, click here.

To see photo’s of Emerson Hall, the green-built addition at First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, click here.

What do you doing to keep Earth Day going throughout the year? You can comment in the box below, or send your thoughts and ideas to greenpoint@dailygazette.net. Greenpoint is a reader conversation on conserving resources, saving energy, buying locally, growing food, and other ways to reduce our impact on our world.