Recommended Events for May 2021
Wednesday, May 5 • How to Have Hard Conversations with People You Love
Fridays, May 7, 14, 21, and 28 • Friday Family Forest Foray at Bernheim Forest
Saturday, May 8 • Plant I.D. Hike at Louisville Nature Center
Sunday, May 9 • Bees Will Buzz at Waterfront Gardens
Tuesday, May 11 • Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice Monthly Meeting
Sunday, May 16 • Making a Fossil Collection at Falls of the Ohio State Park
Tuesday, May 18 • Sierra Club presents Outings Chair, Dave Stawicki
Wednesday, May 19 • KFTC Just Imagine Art Show Virtual Launch
Thursday, May 20 • SURJ - May Action Hour Zap
Thursday, May 20 • A Way Forward on Race hosted by Filson Historical Society
Saturday, May 22 • 4th annual Garden, Lawn, & Plant Swap!
Saturday, May 22 • Introduction to Natural Printing and Dyeing
Saturday, June 12 • Local Action For Climate Care with 100% REAL
Camp Odyssey for Kids: Registration is open at Earth and Spirit Center
Calling all Art Loving Volunteers: New Installation coming to Bernheim!
Watch Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai
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Wednesday, May 5, 10 am - 12 pm
Communicating Across Divides: How to Have Hard Conversations with People You Love
With Cory Lockhart via Zoom
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Many of us deeply feel the divisiveness of our time. We long to have bridge-building conversations about polarizing issues and yet when we try, we end up frustrated, angry, and wondering how "they" (whoever "they" are) can possibly believe what they believe, say what they're saying, support who or what they support. Not knowing how to navigate these conversations is particularly painful when “they” are people we love.
This two-hour workshop introduces the Nonviolent/Compassionate Communication (NVC) framework to explore strategies for finding connection across divides, while standing firmly in our own values and integrity. This workshop is highly participatory with an emphasis on practice.
The workshop includes:
A brief outline of the NVC framework
Introduction of strategies for maintaining connection (with handouts)
Time to practice the strategies and receive feedback
Discussion of how to take these tools and strategies beyond the workshop.
Regular investment for this workshop is $30. A limited number of spots at $10 and $20 have been made available to provide greater accessibility. Registration details available here.
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Fridays
May 7, 14, 21, and 28,
2 - 3 pm
Friday Family
Forest Foray
Bernheim Forest,
Clermont, KY, 40110
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Join Bernheim Volunteer Naturalists each Friday through June for these family friendly explorations of the natural world. Registration required. Space is limited and social distancing protocol will be enforced. Masks required when family groups are within 6 feet of others. No pets please. $5 per person, regardless of age, member and non-member rate. Registration required by 4 pm the day prior to the program. Call (502) 955-8512 or click here. Space is limited.
Are you looking to connect with nature? Bernheim is the place to do it. With 16,137 acres of land, there is an adventure waiting for everyone. Purchased by German immigrant Isaac W. Bernheim in 1929, the land was dedicated as a gift to the people of his new homeland. Today, more than 500,000 visitors from the U.S. and abroad visit Bernheim each year.
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Saturday, May 8, 1 - 3 pm
Plant I.D. Hike
Louisville Nature Center,
3745 Illinois Avenue Louisville, 40213
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If you’ve always wanted to learn more about our native plants, join Rosemary for this guided hike through the Beargrass Creek State Nature Preserve. You’ll feel even more connected to the Forest once you get to know its inhabitants.
“All flowers talk to me and so do hundreds of little living things in the woods. I learn what I know by watching and loving everything.” - George Washington Carver
The Nature Center and Preserve are located on an upland and floodplain forest that has over 180 species of trees, shrubs and flowering plants. It is also home to over 150 species of resident and migratory birds and other animals. The grounds include a Nature Play Area, a Bird Blind, a Rain Garden and a Sensory Garden that are home to butterflies, hummingbirds and beneficial insects, and the center itself, which houses a few reptiles and amphibians, as well as other native wildlife specimens.
Registration available here.
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Sunday, May 9, 1-2:30 pm
Bees Will Buzz
Waterfront Gardens
Graeser Family Education Center, 1435 Frankfort Ave 40206
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Children ages 5-12 and their grown-ups are invited to the Graeser Family Education Center on the second Sunday of each month for an afternoon program that includes stories, nature-based learning stations, a craft, and lots of fun. Pre-registration is required by the Friday ahead of the program.
In this program: Spend a spring day in the garden investigating how bees, butterflies, and birds help our garden through pollination. Questions? Contact Wanda Peck at wpeck@waterfrontgardens.org
Cost: $15, $10 per child.
Water Front Gardens members can use code WBGMEMBER at checkout to receive a discount.
Parents FREE with an accompanying child.
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Tuesday, May 11, 7 pm
Louisville
Showing Up for Racial Justice
Monthly Meeting
Via Zoom
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Join Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice (LSURJ) for our monthly meeting.
From 7:00-7:30, we welcome for new folks and go over the basics of what it means to fight racism in our community. Join us before the meeting if you want to learn more about LSURJ.
Then from 7:30-8:30, we choose a topic to explore further. For the next few meetings we will focus on Strategic Campaigns and Actions.
This is a perfect meeting to attend - AND - we encourage you to invite one friend, family member, co-worker.... You get the idea!
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Sunday, May 16
Making a Fossil Collection
Family Nature Club
Falls of the Ohio State Park
201 West Riverside Drive,
Clarksville, IN, 47129
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A Family Nature Club favorite – kids can make a fossil collection from the park’s fossil collecting piles behind the Interpretive Center. Meet at the collecting piles in the back of the parking lot. Learn about fossils and how to recognize them. Participants will label and attach their finds to a “collection card.” Removing fossils from anywhere else in the park is against the law. Interpretive Center admission is not required. $2 program fee paid at admissions desk. $2 parking fee, exempt with a 2021 Indiana State Parks Entrance Pass. Program free for Falls of the Ohio Foundation members.
Family Nature Club was created in 2015 to encourage families with children age 4 to 12 to get outside with friends and do something fun! Make time to enjoy nature with good company. Activities are designed to promote thinking. Club activities last no more than one hour.
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Tuesday, May 18, 7 pm
Greater Louisville Sierra Club presents
Outings Chair, Dave Stawicki
Offered online
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Please join us as we welcome our Chapter’s Outings Chair, Dave Stawicki, for a western U.S. travel presentation. Here’s the link to register for our Zoom meeting- https://tinyurl.com/kciwats
Dave recently shared his experience, “Hiking in the Time of Covid-19”, in The Cumberland. He will expand on this hiking trip during his presentation. Dave will be speaking about his trip to western national parks, including Colorado’s Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park, which came about after cancellation of other plans he had made. Featuring prominently in this will be a narrative of one particular experience in which he severely underestimated the difficulty of a trail he wanted to hike! He hopes that his experience will provide some insights and inspiration to others planning similar adventures.
Dave Stawicki is an avid hiker/backpacker currently undertaking a self-inflicted crusade to visit and experience as many national parks as he can. When not on the trail, he volunteers for the Kentucky Chapter of the Sierra Club and currently serves as Outings Chair.
We hope you’ll join us for this enjoyable hiking travelogue. Our programs, live or virtual, are always free and open to the public.
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Wednesday, May 19, 7 pm
Just Imagine Art Show Virtual Launch
Hosted online by KFTC
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Healing harm, Sharing grief, Envisioning the Kentucky we deserve
Over the past year, a group of KFTC members from the Empower Kentucky Leadership Network have been working together to deepen KFTC’s Just Transition work—to imagine what justice and sustainability look like in an anti-racist Kentucky. In service of this re-imagining, we put out a Call to Artists in late 2020, inviting artists of all genres to submit work that addresses: a) their vision for a Just Transition to a just, sustainable, anti-racist future in Kentucky b) how they have experienced joy, hurt, growth, or harm within KFTC’s work for a Just Transition, c) what they imagine our relationship with the environment and each other would be if we were free from the scarcity created by white supremacy
We are thrilled by 40+ pieces of visual art, poetry, theater, music, textiles, video, and more–all submitted by Kentuckians with a vision for the world we are trying to build.
During this event we will hear from participating artists, engage and react with the submissions, and build relationships together.
Through this process, we hope to emerge with new, inspiring, and expansive ways to communicate about Just Transition in Kentucky. We plan to feed the ideas and stories reflected in the submitted art back into our Just Transition revisioning process and into KFTC’s broader organizing strategy.
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Thursday, May 20, 3 pm
SURJ May
Action Hour Zap
Online and everywhere
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Looking for an easy way to plug into the work for justice and to gain community organizing skills?
Showing Up For Racial Justice action zaps are back this spring to support the work of our partners to win racial and economic justice! Join us in weekly, one-hour gatherings where we will "zap" (call, text, or email) whomever we are pressuring that day. You'll receive training and support throughout the session.
Our May Action Zap will be focused on Abolition and Defunding the police, amplifying the calls to action coming from communities who have lost young people of color to police murder. We will be taking action for 20-year old Daunte Wright’s murder in Minnesota by demanding to recall Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freemen, demanding police accountability for the murder of Ma’khia Bryant, the 16- year old murdered by Columbus police, and more. Register here.
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Thursday, May 20, 12 pm
A Way Forward on Race
Hosted online by the
Filson Historical Society online
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Saturday, May 22
4th Annual
Garden, Lawn, &
Plant Swap!
967 Logan St, 40204
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Want “new” tools and plants for your garden without breaking the bank? Need to free up space in your garden or shed? This event is for you! Bring any extra tools, plants, planters, lawn decorations, etc. to the Logan Street CSO Basin on Saturday, May 22nd to donate or swap.
Don't have anything to swap? That's okay! Sometimes you just need a few tools and plants to get you started! This is a FREE swap -- absolutely NO items will be allowed to be sold.
Popular items in the past:
bulbs, garden fencing, wheel barrows, herbs, succulents, seed packets, hose, planter boxes and tools.
The Conservation District and other environmental partners will also be on hand with organization information and to offer gardening advice.
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Saturday, May 22, 10 am - Noon
Introduction to Natural
Printing and Dyeing
Jefferson Memorial Forest
11311 Mitchell Hill Rd
Fairdale, KY 40118
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What happens when you combine botany, art, tradition, and chemistry into one? The fascinating world of natural printing and dyeing, of course! Join us and learn how to find ingredients for dyes, how to use mordants, what ingredients indigenous people use as dyes, and much more! We will be printing on and dyeing cloth, as well as walking around the forest and surrounding areas, so dress to hike and get messy.
FEE: $10/person Ages 10 and older.
A parent/legal guardian must accompany anyone under the age of 18.
Pre-Register by calling 502/368-5404
Jefferson Memorial Forest is the largest nature preserve in Jefferson County and the largest municipally-owned urban forest in the United States. The Jefferson Memorial Forest is the flagship of Louisville Metro Parks' Natural Areas Division which is responsible for stewardship, nature-based education and recreation across eight other natural areas. Located in the unique knobs region of Kentucky which is characterized by steep wooded slopes rising nearly 450 feet above the Ohio River Valley below, the Forest offers a national park experience just minutes from downtown Louisville.
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Registration is open for the
Weeks of June 14 and June 21,
9 - 4 pm
Camp Odyssey for Kids
Earth and Spirit Center
1924 Newburg Road, 40205
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We are so excited to be back this year! Camp Odyssey immerses children entering grades 1-6 in the Earth & Spirit Center mission. As they explore the woodlands and meadows of our 27-acre campus and nature sanctuary, as they work and play with our artists, garden and environmental educators, chefs, yoga and meditation instructors, musicians and many others, kids come to understand how ecosystems work, where their food comes from, and how to be more mindful and compassionate toward themselves, their bodies, other people, and their surroundings. Plus, we all have so much fun! Camp will be conducted in accordance with the latest state and CDC guidelines for Covid.
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Calling all Art Loving Volunteers:
New Installation coming to Bernheim this Spring!
Exciting news! Bernheim has a new art installation coming this spring that will kick off Phase 2 of Playcosystem, our 10-acre natural children’s playground. Similar to Forest Giants in a Giant Forest, this installation will be a large, collaboratively built work dependent upon the help of art-loving volunteers. We expect to see the artist in mid-May, but there is a lot of prep work to be done in advance of the artist’s arrival, including a week at the Falls of the Ohio (April 19 – 23) collecting driftwood for the project.
Learn new skills, meet interesting people, discover who the artist is before anyone else and experience the fun in helping to create something special at Bernheim! This is an outdoor project with Covid safety procedures in place to ensure a healthy and safe experience for all!
Contact Ida Brown Bernheim’s Volunteer Coordinator via email or by calling 502 955-8512 ext. 253 to learn more.
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Taking Root:
The Vision of Wangari Maathai
Watch the Documentary
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Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai is a documentary about the Green Belt Movement of Kenya and its founder Wangari Maathai, the first environmentalist and first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Professor Maathai discovered her life’s work by reconnecting with the rural women with whom she had grown up. They told her they were walking long distances for firewood, clean water was scarce, the soil was disappearing from their fields, and their children were suffering from malnutrition. “Well, why not plant trees?” Maathai suggested. These women found themselves working successively against deforestation, poverty, ignorance, embedded economic interests, and government corruption, until they became a national political force that helped to bring down Kenya’s 24-year dictatorship. Taking Root captures Maathai’s thirty-year journey of courage to protect the integrally connected issues of the environment, human rights, and democracy. Watch the film online here.
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