Volunteers Put Down Roots in Rohnert Park for Earth Day

Great pioneers of environmental protection, preservation and conservation started Earth Day in 1970 — the same year President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency.

The day was branded as a national movement: Earth Day, founded by a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson. The movement gained traction with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, an expose of the global pesticide DDT, which was being used throughout the country to eradicate pests — from cotton, to mosquitoes and foodstuffs — and it was showing up in nearly every reach of the food chain. 

Today, Earth Day remains a national movement. It’s a day when schools, governments, nonprofits and businesses band together to somehow help our planet. And Rohnert Park is no different. Last spring, the city instituted the first Adopt-a-Park program, and this year marked Rohnert Park’s first effort to establish a citywide Earth Day celebration.

Masses of volunteers blanketed the city last Friday to weed local parks, plant new flowers and grasses and pick up trash. Seventy-five kids from the Rohnert Park Boys and Girls Club swarmed City Center Park to clean it up.

Though the park was pretty maintained, the kids still got important lessons inside the library on sustainability and ecology.

“We jumped at the chance to adopt this park,” said Boys and Girls Club director Micki Jones, who adopted City Center Park last year. “It was built to be the center of the community — a place where we could do all sorts of fun events for the city — what better place for the Boys and Girls Club [to get] involved with the community.”

Hundreds more volunteers showed up in droves to clean up parks and open spaces for Friday’s event, dubbed Earth Day Extravaganza — from J Section, to Golis Park and Magnolia Park.

“The parks are our home, and they’re part of our community,” said Bonnie Black, a Parks and Recreation commissioner who is one of about 50 local volunteers who adopted Golis Park last year.

“We’re all users of the park, we’re happy to help with all the budget cuts,” Black said. “It also helps develop Rohnert Park’s spirit and sense of community.”

Other open spaces that have been adopted include J-Section, by the J-Birds and Magnolia Park by the Alpha Delta Pi Sorority at Sonoma State University. 

Nelle Seidenspinner and Jessica Schirbel, who work for the city’s Community Services Department and Senior Center, respectively, created the Earth Day Extravaganza, aimed at mobilizing citizens to get more involved in their parks, and to foster a sense of ownership.

Editor's note: Local businesses that donated to the event last week include Clover Stornetta, Safeway, Grocery Outlet, Innovative Screen Printing, Merrill Gardens and Westcoast Solar Energy.

Nick Walden contributed to this report.