We are feeling uplifted and inspired by news stories we read this past week in CBC and hope you will too. The first two share stories of individuals who are making a difference – a pair of young friends, and a young couple in Gambo, Newfoundland and Labrador. The third piece profiles an ambitious coastal cleanup project in BC that is good for the environment even as it serves to help people in BC’s tourism sector who have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two Kids Planting a Forest

• 

• 

• 

Meet Marcello Marini Ferraz, 10 and Olivia Marquez, 13, who have realized their “Field of Dreams” goal to fundraise to plant a “whole forest” – 1400 seedlings on one hectare (or one soccer field) in Mata Atlantico (the Atlantic Forest, Brazil).

CBC’s What on Earth, tells their inspiring story, begun when Marcello was 8 and Olivia 11. Marcello’s interest in the environment was sparked when he read SOS Planet Earth at his school in Toronto. One year later, on a family vacation to Brazil, he met and stayed with Olivia’s family, and together they were able to tour a rainforest space managed by SOS Mata Atlantico. From there, their general desire to help restore the rainforest turned into a specific goal to plant a “whole forest”. The adults involved helped Marcello and Olivia to create this YouTube video about their project, co-narrated by Marcello in English and Olivia in Portuguese-  Help us help the WORLD 2 – YouTube

(CBC What on Earth – https://bit.ly/3BmRfXw)

Growing Vegetables to Feed a Community

Meet Samantha Whitman and Nathan Gidge, in a CBC piece that profiles these two creators of two-year old Kingfisher farm, in Gambo, Newfoundland and Labrador. (CBC – https://bit.ly/3rjbRvg)

We were surprised to learn how little land it takes to feed a community – their small scale farming operation is on land that is the size of “many peoples’ backyards”.

In just two short growing seasons the couple have converted a “hillside heap of gravel” into a prolific vegetable garden that now supplies weekly veggie baskets to a full list of customers, with a wait list. In addition, for every purchased basket, they donate one veggie basket to “the local Family Resource Centre to go to young families in need.”

• 

• 

Read more about how they are maximizing their small farm space to get the most out of the land by applying ‘organic polyculture philosophy’ and methods such as crop rotation, crop diversity and attending to soil health – (CBC – https://bit.ly/3rjbRvg).

(This growing season Catherine is trying her hand at crop rotation, by dividing her garden space into four sections and grouping veggies according to the soil nutrients they use or contribute. The theory is next growing season each section of the garden and veggie grouping will shift to the right (crop rotation), in an effort to avoid nutrient depletion from repeated planting of the same crop in the same space, thereby improving overall soil health and productivity (hopefully) in the garden as a whole.  She just has to make sure to put her ‘garden map’ in a safe place she can find so she remembers “the plot” (e.g., tomatoes and squash following beans) when the next planting season comes around!)

Building Back Better with Coastal Cleanups

In this CBC piece we learned that the BC government is using $7 million from a special COVID-19 relief fund on an ambitious coastal cleanup project. The goal is to clean up 400 tonnes of plastic waste along 1200 km of BC coastline while employing workers and vessels from the tourism sector that has been hard hit by pandemic lockdowns. This sounds like a brilliant win-win-win approach and good news story about building back better.  Good for people, sea creatures and the environment! (CBC news – https://bit.ly/3Buvt4u)

Global Citizen Live

24-hours of music to raise awareness and money to fight worldwide threats that include COVID-19, climate change and extreme poverty are planned for the Global Citizen Live event on September 21, 2021 as reported in CP24. 

Ambitious goals for the event include fund raising for one billion doses of COVID019 vaccine, $6 billion for famine relief and one billion trees.

Artists such as The Weekend, BTS, Billie Eilish, Coldplay, Andrea Bocelli, Angelique Kidjo, Lang Lang and more are slated to perform in live events in cities such as Paris, London, LA and NYC’s Central Park.  Read more about participating artists as reported in this CP24 piece (CP24 – https://bit.ly/3hPtXlt) and about the lineup and plans to broadcast the event on September 25, in this MTV.com piece https://on.mtv.com/3wPO4V3. Mark your calendars!