Water Wise Day (Richmond)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

10am – 11am: Gardening in a Changing Climate with Charlotte Canner of Our Water Our World

The changing climate has brought drought, heat waves, floods and more, all of which have an impact on our gardens as well as our loved ones. Join Charlotte Canner of “Our Water Our World” as she will discuss what gardeners can do to mitigate climate-related stress to our gardens and build resilience into our landscapes to help our plants withstand major weather events. You will also learn ways to identify environmental damage versus pest damage. This class is for gardeners of all levels.

Water Our World is a clean water program that educates the public on eco-friendly pest management and using less toxic products, with an emphasis on healthy gardening practices. Charlotte Canner is an Integrated Pest Management Advocate and is especially passionate about compost and soil health.

11am – 12pm: Lawn Conversion to Thriving Native Habitat with Oscar Lucario

Join Bay Area Landscaper Oscar Lucario to learn how to convert your thirsty lawn into a thriving native garden. He will cover water saving techniques, sheet mulching, irrigation tricks, rebates, and his favorite water wise Annie’s plant varieties.

12:30pm – 1:30pm: Harvesting Rain from the Ground Up with James Ryder of Hillside Earth-Arts Lab

Wise use of water, from the sky and the tap, starts with healthy soil. James will discuss various lowtech, free and low-cost means to harvest the rain. What matters most is adopting any one or more of these doable strategies. You’ll pay less for water, help decrease the amount of runoff pollution to the Bay, and delightfully, a natural vitality will return to your garden. Join the community conversation. Learn to slow, spread and sink the flow and perhaps deepen your water wisdom.

In spring of 2022, James Ryder founded the Hillside Earth-Arts Lab [HEAL] in El Cerrito to liberate a neglected 10th of an acre, raise food and chickens ecologically, and to invite in wild and human communities. James is a lifelong gardener, educator, yogi, and writer, who earned a Permaculture Design Certification [PDC] from the Occidental Arts Ecology Center with Brock Dolman of The Water Institute.

Send all inquiries to James at Earth.Arts.Lab@gmail.com & check out HEAL on Instagram: @earthartslab

1:30pm – 2:30pm: Grey Water Recycling with Shreya Ramachandran of The Grey Water Project

Shreya Ramachandran, Founder of The Grey Water Project, will discuss grey water recycling, exploring its applications, both in household settings and on a broader scale within businesses or communities. Join us and learn how the water crisis is truly a global crisis that everyone needs to care about.

Shreya’s efforts have garnered recognition, with awards such as the Google Science Fair, International Science and Engineering Fair, President’s Environmental Youth Award, and The Children’s Climate Prize. As Student Commissioner for the Sustainability Commission in Fremont, California, her proposal to integrate grey water systems into the climate action plan was successfully implemented. Under her leadership, the Fremont Unified School District (FUSD) board unanimously passed a climate literacy resolution, benefiting 33,000 students in the district. She has since assisted several other school districts in similar endeavors. She has been working with the UN since 2017 and is currently the North American Focal Point for UNEP-MGCY. She is also the class president at Stanford, head of policy for Students at Sustainable Stanford currently working on their climate action plan.

Find more information or to get involved with The Grey Water Project, HERE.

Follow Shreya on social media: Twitter: @shreya_rama │ Instagram: @thegreywaterproject│ Facebook: The Grey Water Project

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.