A South Osborne Sustainable Home video now available to view

The Riverview and Lord Roberts CLER Program is proud to present a video: A South Osborne Sustainable Home is a 7-minute tour of a sustainable home renovation in the South Osborne neighbourhood of Riverview. You’ll view innovative approaches to renovation, such as using recycled materials and soy-based insulation, and installing efficient appliances and a green roof! We will be hosting two premieres of our video at our upcoming Free Home Energy Efficiency Workshops, where we will be giving away free supplies to everyone who attends.

We would like to thank the very talented Matt Wiebe, who was our Videographer for the project, and we would also like to thank Bill Newsinger, who generously provided the music for the video.

South Osborne Tree Banding Project

I have a dream for South Osborne this fall: to band every single tree.

Why? So that the beautiful trees that we have in South Osborne will be here for this and future generations.

Here are my top three reasons for wanting to see every tree banded this fall:

1. Cankerworms! Tree banding is an easy way to protect your trees from cankerworms infestations. Wouldn’t it be great if South Osborne was known as a cankerworm-free neighbourhood? The thing is that all trees need to be banded
2.  Lower Energy Costs!  Trees act as wind barriers in the winter and shade providers in the summer. “If you plant a tree today on the west side of your home, in 5 years your energy bills should be 3% less. In 15 years, the savings will be nearly 12%.” —Dr. E. Greg McPherson, Center for Urban Forest Research. 
3. Property Values! Healthy trees on your property and street add to the value of your home. Have you ever been on a street without trees? Not very inviting.

How can this dream come true? We need people to volunteer to be a tree-band captain for 2-3 blocks. We will give you an easy-to-follow guide on how to engage your neighbours, and we will also organize a tree-banding supply drop-off for your blocks, and we will give you our life-long admiration. You’ll get to experience connecting with your neighbours, making a difference in the community and a neighbourhood full of beautiful trees.

We are holding a Volunteer Recruitment Information and Questions Meeting at the Lord Roberts Community Centre on Wednesday, July 14 from 7 to 8 p.m. Please come with questions and enthusiasm!

Fruit Share Winnipeg growing astronomically and all of Winnipeg knows it

According to a blog at fruitshare.ca, the once-little not-for-profit just signed up its 100th volunteer. They also now have more than 50 fruit owners signed up, so the volunteers will have plenty of fruit and rhubarb to harvest this year.

For those unfamiliar with the organization, Fruit Share rescues fruit from going to waste by recruiting volunteers to pick fruit where it otherwise won’t get picked. Perhaps a homeowner just has too much fruit growing on their property and would like to see it go to good use. One-third of the fruit picked goes to the homeowner, one-third to the volunteer and the remainder is donated to organizations such as Winnipeg Harvest.

Fruit Share and its founder Getty Stewart made the cover of the Metro on June 8, 2011, making the organization well on its way to becoming a household name. Congratulations Fruit Share!

To volunteer to pick fruit, register here. If you have fruit to register, sign up here.

L.E.A.F. Kits (Living Earth Activities for Families) available Jun 15!

The CLER staff have been hard at work putting together Living Earth Activities for Families. Why spend $25-100 on a new toy, when you can enjoy these amazing and fun kits for free!

There are four kits to choose from:

• Star Gazing Kit, which includes a real telescope, a make-your-own-constellation craft, a book about stars and more.
• Trees, Leaves and Flowers Kit, which includes a leaf and flower press, carbon tree tape measures and more.
• Birds and Insects Kit, which includes a bug observation box, a bug magnifyer, a bird card game and binoculars.
• Navigation Kit, which contains a compass, an draw-your-own map activity and a book about navigation.

The kits will be available to borrow from the Riverview and Lord Roberts Community Centres starting June 15.

Gardenshare

Now that most of the snow is gone, my mind is buzzing with excitement asking, “what will I grow this year?”  If you don’t usually garden you may want to take part in South Osborne Urban Community Cooperative (SOUCC) gardenshare program this year.

Have a garden space but don’t use it? Or, do you want to garden but don’t have the space? This program connects people so they can share a garden and fresh vegetables. There are two options for involvement:

Landowners can sign up here.

Gardeners can sign up here.

CLER will be hosting some gardening workshops in May from the fine folks at Urban Eatin Co-op. Dates to come.