Fort Wayne Celebrates Earth Day

By Rachel Martin

April 22, 2012 Updated Apr 22, 2012 at 5:02 PM EDT

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) –Every year on April 22, it's Earth Day. Sunday in Fort Wayne, people are celebrating in many ways.

It's opening weekend at the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo and they celebrated by having a “Party for the Planet.” Families went around collecting stamps by doing small activities that taught them about saving the planet. After all six stamps were collected, each child was given a seed to plant.

“Every little bit helps,” said Kathy Terlizzi with the Children’s Zoo. “There's one of our stations where the kids can actually make a pledge and tell us what they're going to do if it's turning the light off, or not running the water while they brush their teeth. If everybody does that little bit, it'll make a great effort.”

Sunday was all about recycling, conservation and energy efficiency, as children learned little things they could do to help.

“I learned that you can recycle a lot of stuff and it will help the Earth,” said 7-year-old Josie Ford.

One station showed by switching to energy-efficient light bulbs and turning off the light switch every time you leave the room, you could save up to $120 a year.

Along the river greenway, volunteers were cleaning the Maumee River. They hope to collect 2,000 pounds of trash by the end of the day.

“Anything that we clean up is effecting 11-million people down stream who drink our water, and over 24-million live in the Great Lakes and depend on Lake Erie--that's where our stream goes,” said Abby King with the Save Maumee/Lake Erie Waterkeepers.

At Eagle Marsh, conservation groups and environmentally-friendly businesses planted nearly 2,000 trees.

“This is a habitat for over 200 species of birds, there's snakes, ducks. There's some fish, salamanders, frogs. I mean all the things that if you live in an urban area you never get to experience, you can find right here,” said Bill Etzler, Vice President and Regional Manager of Aqua Indiana.

“This is important because I think it brings people together, and we need to understand that it's our responsibility, it's all of our responsibilities, to make the world a better place,” said King.




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