Environmental Advocacy Event To Take Place In June

More than a dozen local environmental groups are slated to come together as part of a campaign, dubbed GreenGive, to raise funds for the greener good of Anne Arundel County for two days starting June 6.

Taking place at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts from 5:00pm to 8:00pm, the GreenGive kickoff party will kickstart a 24-hour fundraising period for people in the area to donate to organizations that strive to assist local watershed and environmental areas throughout the county. Attendees of the kickoff event will have the opportunity to meet representatives from each organization who will offer information on what their respective goals are for the upcoming year.

The GreenGive 2023 partners include Annapolis Green, Arundel Rivers Federation, Crownsville Conservancy, Friends of Jug Bay, Good Neighbors Group, Maryland Reentry Resource Center, Scenic Rivers Land Trust, Severn River Association, Severn Riverkeeper, Spa Creek Conservancy, St. Luke’s Restoration of Nature, the Anne Arundel County Watershed Stewards Academy and Unity Gardens.

Unity Gardens is an organization that awards several $1,000 grants annually to groups that want to grow native plants. The organization advocates for the growth of native plants in the area, recognizing the benefits that they bring to the environment.

Unity Gardens volunteer Karen Royer explained that once an interested group goes through the application process and is chosen by the Unity Gardens board, they are given a grant to plant native plants in their respective space. In turn, that will benefit the native birds, pollinators and butterflies in the area.

“The things that we need here are like coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, baptisia and the native honeysuckle,” Royer said.

Another partner involved in GreenGive this year is the Good Neighbors Group. Started in 2006, the Good Neighbors Group aims to get people involved in opportunities with social and environmental impacts, to include gardening projects, cleaning up of local environments and ridding certain areas of invasive plants and vines.

Julie Shay is the founder and executive director of the Good Neighbors Group. Shay explained that GreenGive expanded this year to involve groups that are not solely environmentally focused. Because her group has some environmental projects, it qualified.

“I knew about GreenGive through Annapolis Green, one of the founding organizations, and so it’s kind of cool to now be involved in it,” Shay said.

Organizers said that not only is GreenGive beneficial to Anne Arundel County residents who are interested in bettering their immediate environment, it also gives involved partners the opportunity to see what other organizations are doing.

The networking aspect has been rewarding for Shay.

“The collaboration is exciting,” Shay said. “It’s been really helpful to get more people knowing what Good Neighbors is and what we do, and you know, because we focus on trying to help people find their way and make an impact through volunteerism, we promote those activities that these groups are doing. And now, they’re doing the same for us.”

A sense of unity isn’t unique to just Shay’s group.

“When you see the sum total of all that’s been done for the green work in the county, it’s a real morale booster,” Royer said. “It does kind of balance out the negative things you see from overdevelopment when you see people putting a lot of heart and soul, and their money, to green organizations.”

More information on the event, as well as donation information, is available at www.greengive.org/donate.