Ewing received Bronze Level Sustainable Jersey certification at the NJ League of Municipalities Conference in Atlantic City on Tuesday, November 19th. Representing the town are Mayor Bert Steinmann, and Council Members Jennifer Keyes-Maloney and Kevin Baxter as well as Green Team Members Peter J. Boughton (2013 Chair), John Hoegl, Mark Wetherbee, and Joanne Mullowney (Communications/IT Officer).
The Ewing Green Team is delighted to announce that EWING TWP has just been awarded bronze level Sustainable Jersey certification for 2013! The team, working in cooperation with the Ewing Environmental Commission, has worked for much of this year to document the many actions that the township has taken to make Ewing a more sustainable community. These actions range from running a Green Fair, to performing energy audits on municipal buildings, to enhancing our community gardens, recycling and waste reduction efforts and much more.
Sustainable Jersey is a non profit organization that offers a certification program as a way to helping communities go green, save money and take steps to sustain their quality of life over the long term. Their certification is a prestigious designation for the 127 municipal governments as of this writing that are already certified in New Jersey. The process is rigorous and all actions taken by municipalities to score points toward certification must be accompanied by documentary evidence and is reviewed. [Click here to see Ewing’s Certification Report.]
As Ewing residents we are delighted to live a in town that values our natural resources and wants to do its part for the environment. This is a time of great change and excitement in town. Not only have we now become a SJ certified municipality, we are also at the beginning of a long-awaited redevelopment project at the former GM site which will create a new town center with housing, retail, community space and transportation. We invite other Ewing residents to join us and become part of a continued green transformation in our town.
Many thanks to Sustainable Jersey for their recently announced approval of a $2,000 capacity-building grant to support our outreach and sustainability efforts. This award is part of $380,000 in grants that have just been awarded through the Sustainable Jersey Small Grants program which is funded in part by Walmart. The grants will be given to recipients at the Annual Sustainable Jersey Awards Luncheon on November 19, 2013 at the New Jersey State League of Municipalities conference in Atlantic City.
This is an important and exciting time for Ewing Township and its Green Team. The Township is in the process of redeveloping the former GM site on Parkway Avenue which will lead to the creation of a town center where none currently exists. It is a source of excitement and hope, for a vastly improved landscape, a place for living and working, community interaction and economic development. The project is an intersection of housing, retail, community space and transportation, which in itself is a plus for sustainability of the township in the coming decades.
At the same time, we feel that we are just beginning to hit our stride as a champion for Ewing’s sustainability. In the next 12-18 months, the Ewing Green Team intends to increase outreach to the community, hone the skills, credentials and commitment of our members, and most importantly, create a Community Sustainability Plan with internal and external stakeholders, including Township officials, community groups, and members of the public.
The coming months will see extensive board training, stakeholder analysis and strategic planning. Our blueprint for the future will also include expanded educational and outreach efforts via our website and social and print media. We also plan to explore ways to create small group discussion around film, books or speakers. The grant will provide the technology and equipment (projector, easel, flipcharts and much more) to help these events function optimally. Thank you, Sustainable Jersey, for your support for our vision for a more sustainable Ewing Township.
It was a great day last Saturday! With the help and energy of yet another contingent of TCNJ student volunteers under the direction of Professor Michael Nordquist and the Community Gardens Committee we accomplished what we have been trying to do all season – decimate a huge mulch pile and put its contents onto the paths of the Ewing Community Gardens on Whitehead Road Extension. This was a fabulous accomplishment and will make a tremendous difference to the gardeners who use the site. Gardeners have already commented on how much easier the site is to use this year since they didn’t have to do quite so much bushwhacking to get to their plots. The efforts of the students and gardeners Saturday have sustained and greatly improved upon our previous efforts. In addition, we were delighted to have the compost bins set up for the gardeners use. Now they won’t have to cart out the weedy debris but can be more environmentally friendly and compost it on site. The weeding and the planting efforts that they contributed were just the icing on the cake!
Ewing Township, the Green Team and most especially the community gardeners have been the recipients of a number of student volunteer community service days this year and are all deeply grateful for all of the hard work that the students put in. We believe that in addition to implementing more environmentally friendly practices at the gardens, the cleanup days, so wonderfully supported by the students, are helping to create the community in our community gardens.
For more photos from the day, check our Photos page.
TCNJ fraternity Alpha Phi Omega is hosting the 5th Annual Feed Our Friends 5K Run and Fun Walk to benefit the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen on Sunday, October 13th. Registration begins at 8:30, the Fun Walk begins at 9 and the 5K begins at 10 a.m. from The College of New Jersey Student Center.
$15 for the Fun Walk for non TCNJ students; $10 for students
$20 for the 5K for non TCNJ students; $15 for students.
$10 for the 5K for groups of 10 or more.
Checks should be made payable to Alpha Phi Omega – TCNJ
See the Flyer and Registration Form for more information.
Sustainable Ewing Green Team 