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Community Environmental Council Invites Everyone to Take Part in Earth Day — Every Day Campaign

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Pledge to take action April 1-21 leading up to Earth Day to make every day a better day for the climate.

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See why CEC is a 2020 California Nonprofit of the Year in our Impact Report here.

SANTA BARBARA — The Community Environmental Council (CEC) is kicking off the annual Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival with the Earth Day — Every Day Campaign.

The campaign runs April 1 through April 21 and invites individuals to take meaningful, personal actions to help the environment. Together we can help our communities reduce climate impact and, at the same time, create healthy habit changes for ourselves.

People of all ages can take the pledge at https://bit.ly/3cEbvK6

Participants can share pictures of the actions they are taking on Instagram and Facebook and include #SBEarthDay #EarthDayEveryDay to earn a chance to win prizes. Winners will be announced during CEC’s Virtual Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival being held ?Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 22-24. The free festival is available to view on SBEarthday.org.

Created by CEC Partnership Council Member and UC Santa Barbara Environmental Studies Lecturer Deborah Williams, the Earth Day — Every Day Campaign offers individuals an opportunity to make meaningful actions part of their daily lives. We celebrate Earth Day each year on April 22, but treading more lightly on the planet is something we can do every single day. The Earth Day — Every Day pledge is designed with clear options so everyone to take part in their own way.

“There are so many reasons to take personal action, including reducing our negative impacts on threatened and endangered species, air and water pollution, plastic pollution, water scarcity and climate change,” said Williams. “During the last five years, my family has conscientiously researched what we could do in our day-to-day lives to help the planet and our community’s environment, which turned into Earth Day — Every Day.” She continued on to share that her family has implemented at least one recommended action in each of the commitments and, in addition to reducing their carbon footprint significantly, they found that all of the actions increased their quality of life, making the experience fun and very rewarding.

The campaign starts with a pledge that allows people to choose the commitments that appeal to them to commit to for the 21 days. Then, they can share photos tagged with #SBEarthDay and #EarthDayEveryDay to participate in a contest for prizes chosen at random during the Earth Day Festival live stream.

“We are thrilled to work with Deborah on this project and to provide individual action and habit change opportunities during Earth Month and beyond. The commitments are incredibly well-researched and provide a wide variety of engagement points. We believe individual action is empowering and can lead to a ripple effect of climate activism throughout the community,” said Kathi King, CEC’s Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival Director.

King is also excited to invite the community to join the virtual Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival from April 22 -24.

This year’s theme is #CelebrateClimateLeadership and each day will have a different focus:

  • Thursday, April 22 – Youth Leadership
  • Friday, April 23 – Business Leadership
  • Saturday, April 24 – Community Leadership

Featured speakers include Annie Leonard from Greenpeace USA and Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA), with musical performances from Kenny Loggins, Zach Gill and others. For the full line-up, visit SBEarthDay.org.

CEC’s Earth Day Festival production partners are contributing their time and expertise to produce the virtual event. These generous partners include Carp Events, Central Coast Clean Cities Coalition (C5), Cultivate Events, Explore Ecology, LOACOM, Mercury Press International, New Noise Music Foundation, Oniracom, Pharos Creative, West Beach Films, UCSB Arts & Lectures, Tri-County Regional Energy Network, and Write Kinda Girl.

Sponsors currently include Marborg Industries, the City of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Clean Energy, Carp Growers, Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, Oniracom, Santa Barbara Independent, Advanced Veterinary Specialists, Armand Hammer Foundation, Bye Bye Mattress, Central Coast Community Energy, County of Santa Barbara One Climate Initiative, Farmacy, Glass House Farms, LOACOM, Quantum Energy Squares, the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, Bunnin Chevrolet, Lazy Acres and Will Hahn Productions. Media sponsors include KJEE, Edhat, Hope Ranch Living, Noozhawk, and Voice Magazine. Become a sponsor at sbearthday.org/sponsor.

About CEC’s Santa Barbara Earth Day:

Widely acknowledged as the birthplace of Earth Day, Santa Barbara’s involvement began with the devastating 1969 oil spill off its coast. This led a local group of concerned citizens to begin discussing a different way of looking at environmental systems. During that time, Senator Gaylord Nelson visited Santa Barbara to view the oil spill damage. When he returned to Washington, D.C., he introduced a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth.

Over the next few years, the environmental movement was born across the country – including CEC. Led by a group of forward-thinking youth and elders, CEC incorporated in the spring of 1970 and its first act as a new nonprofit was to hold an Earth Day celebration – a one block long teach-in in downtown Santa Barbara, between State Street and Chapala Street along Anapamu Street. Around the country, 20 million concerned citizens attended similar events. We recognize that “every day is earth day” and that special events like this are a way to bring diverse voices from our community together as a reminder to tread lightly on the planet.

For up-to-the-minute information on CEC’s #CelebrateClimateLeadership Virtual Earth Day Festival:

About the Community Environmental Council (CEC) — Recognized as a 2020 California Nonprofit of the Year and 2020 City of Santa Barbara Climate Hero, CEC has worked since 1970 to incubate and innovate real life environmental solutions that directly affect the California Central Coast. Our current work advances rapid and equitable solutions to the climate crisis – including ambitious zero carbon goals, drawdown of excess carbon, and protection against the impacts of climate change. Our programs lead to clean vehicles, solar energy, resilient food systems and reduction of single-use plastic. Learn more about why CEC is one of only five nonprofits in Santa Barbara County to have the highest possible ratings on Charity Navigator and Guidestar at CECSB.org/impact. Find CEC on the web at CECSB.org and on Facebook.com/CECSB, Instagram.com/CEC_SB, Twitter.com/CECSB, and LinkedIn.com/CECSB.