This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Green Living Fair Comes to Libertyville Saturday

The public event will offer information on how to protect the environment.

Lake County Green Congregations and Libertyville Civic Center Foundation will share ways to protect the environment at Saturday.

Educating others and taking action to support the environment is nothing new to a group of students.

Libertyville Environmental Action Force members are regularly seen cleaning up rivers and holding weekly recycling collections. The group will be among local and country groups educating the public on how they can protect the environment at the Green Living Fair.

Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

LEAF sponsor David Lapish said hopefully this event will give the club some exposure and build enthusiasm as to what they are doing within the high school and the surrounding communities.

‘We can talk with the community about what we are doing and they can share ideas about other things we can do that we may not have thought about,” Lapish said.

Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Green Living Fair will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Libertyville Civic Center, 125 W. Church St.

The second annual fair is organized by Lake County Green Congregations, a coalition of eight churches created in 2009 to share ideas and build awareness on how they can help the environment.

"Our goal is to try to make a local difference in our habits, our practices and our human footprint," co-chair Katey Aynilian said.

Exhibtors include Sierra Club, Central Lake County Garden Club, Lake County Bicycle Club, Illinois Extension Service, Audubon Society, College of Lake County Sustainability Center, Lake County Forest Preserve and Lake County Garden Club.

The Human Footprint, a film about how much of the world's resources each individual consumes, will be shown at the fair and will be followed by a discussion.

Artists at Heart will lead a children’s activity. The Village of Libertyville will be handing out free compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Aynilian said the group hopes people will gain more awareness when they are using more energy than they need, a better feel for eating organic foods and understand the impact when they us plastic bags.

"We hope to change people's everyday habits," she said.

The event will also serve as a recycling collection where individuals can bring items such as wine corks, cell phones, eyeglasses, ink cartridges, lightweight electronics, styrofoam blocks and hearing aides. Aynilian added that local girl scouts also will lead a crayon recycling station.

Co-chair Kathy O’Brien said hosting this fair with the Libertyville Civic Center Foundation and holding it at the center is key to emphasizing that this is not a church event.

“While a group of churches are sponsoring the event, we hope people not affiliated with the church will come because they want to get educated,” she said.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?