¡Pollinate! Questa Earth Day Fun

With five fabulous and vibrant youth painted banners, over 20 volunteers, five interactive booths, many strings of pollinator flags, lots of paper maché bees and butterflies, a delicious lunch, and a steady flow of participants, the ¡Pollinate! Earth Day event was lots of fun!

It was wonderful to have cars lining the streets, the Visitor Center parking lot busy, and people of all ages out and about in downtown Questa!

Visitors enjoyed: exploring bees and beekeeping with Melanie Kirby of Zia Queen Bee Co.; “Smelling the Flowers” with Cathy Hope of Iris Herbal Products; planting seeds with master gardener Alita Randolph, face painting with artist, Peggy Trigg; exploring pollinators and plants on Public lands with Kevin Lehto and the Forest Service team.; discussing localization and the Northern NM Growers & Makers Exchange with Gaea McGahee; and eating a delicious free picnic lunch – soups and mac-n-cheese made by Kathy Morsell, homemade challah bread donated by Olga Gressot and delicious cookies made by Gaea and Jamie and Sally. Thank you to all of the cooks!

A deep thank you to the MANY wonderful, dedicated volunteers for helping to make the celebration such a success. Thank you also to Mayor Gallegos for facilitating the ribbon cutting for the banners and to our young, expert ribbon-cutters!

The Earth Day Coordinators, Claire Coté, Joan long and Gaea McGahee, feel that they can report without a doubt, that the event and education project in general was a success! See more 2016 Earth Day photos on Flickr.

Keep your eyes out for the banners, soon to be installed in local NCRTD Blue Bus stops…..and don’t forget to mark your calendars for our other upcoming ¡Pollinate! events.