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What: Celebrate Earth Day at the Cool Davis 2015 awards presentation, honoring Eco-Heroes Kaiyue “David” Wang, John Mott-Smith, Orhan Orgun and Daniel Sperling and Climate Solution Award winners Parkview Place, Holmes Junior High School Green Team and UC Davis Transportation Services
When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, at Picnic in the Park
Where: Band stage in Central Park, Fourth and C streets
Be green: Walk, bike or take public transit; bring your own water bottle and bring your own or buy a picnic supper

* Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series showcasing the winners of Cool Davis’ Eco-Hero and Climate Solutions Awards.

Each year, Cool Davis recognizes “Eco-Heroes” — Davis residents who model how to incorporate sustainable practices into their work, civic and everyday lives. Acting out of personal conviction, they do “the right thing” for themselves, our community and our planet.

The Cool Davis Climate Solution Awards go to local businesses, groups or organizations for exemplary efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As they model ways to reduce their environmental impact, they become leaders in creating options to conserve resources, reduce fossil fuel dependence and stabilize the climate.

In its efforts to work with our community on greenhouse gas emission reduction and sustainability issues, Cool Davis
focuses on three topics: buildings (energy efficiency), consumption (reducing consumption and waste of food, water, etc.) and transportation (shifting to non-fossil-fuel vehicles and other modes of transportation).

The Cool Davis Eco-Hero Award related to consumption goes to Orhan Orgun, for his permaculture efforts to grow food for the hungry, and a Climate Solutions Award goes to the Holmes Junior High School Green Team and its leaders, for their efforts to provide a robust and sustainable recycling program for the school.

Orhan Orgun

By David Abramson
In 2012, Orhan Orgun decided he needed a change. He had been feeling the itch for some time to move away from theoretical studies toward what he called a “world of action,” and that is exactly what he did when he decided to pack up his career as a linguistics professor at UC Davis and dedicate his life to growing food for underserved populations.

Originally from a small village in Turkey, he immigrated to the United States as a young man, and now wanted to till the soil again.

At his retirement party, he had the good fortune of meeting a farmer connected with FARM Davis (http://farmdavis.org), a group that grows food for houseless and food-insecure people in Davis. He soon began volunteering with them, and hasn’t looked back since.

Orgun ended up removing his own front lawn and donating the area to start the third FARM Davis site, now full with an abundance of fruit trees, vegetable rows and their signature “hugelkultur” mounds. The mounds, made by digging deep holes and filling them with woody tree debris and soil, help to save water and replenish the soil with vital nutrients. Orgun’s garden, even as the smallest of the three, produces more than 600 pounds of produce per year.

There is certainly a social and political component that seems to motivate Orgun. He sees food as “not just a commodity but a basic human right” and noted that there are some serious issues with the food system in America, mostly regarding how food is distributed among the people.

Orgun explained that “we grow more food than we eat as a country” but most of that food ends up wasted and not getting to the people who need it.

He volunteers 10 to 15 hours per week between the three FARM Davis properties and also help fund the projects by purchasing irrigation supplies and other needed gardening materials.

If you want to farm with Orgun and get involved with FARM Davis, email [email protected]

Holmes Green Team
By Michelle Millet

Science teacher Martha Quenon formed the Green Team at Holmes Junior High School six years ago with the intention to raise awareness of environmental issues among students. Since that time, the group has evolved into one that has taken a hands-on approach to reducing the amount of waste generated on their campus.

Ninth-grader Hailey Shapiro, a Green Team member, is receiving special recognition for, as Quenon describes, her tireless work toward implementing a sustainable composting and recycling system throughout the Holmes campus. Hailey says one of the biggest challenges she faces is getting other kids to care about recycling.

In an effort to do so, she and Green Team members developed a classroom presentation designed to teach fellow students about the recycling and composting programs.

Keri Hawkins, a paraeducator on campus, took over the reins of the Green Team in January. She has designed garden beds that are accessible to students with disabilities, written and received grants that help fund the gardening and recycling program at Holmes, and facilitated the Green Team’s recycling efforts by instigating their participation in the Keep California Beautiful K-12 Recycling Challenge, a statewide school competition promoting waste reduction and recycling.

Hawkins and the Green Team members have taken several steps to improve diversion rates on the Holmes campus. They color-coded collection bins to be consistent with the city of Davis’ and streamlined the bin locations. They also created 3-D posters to help educate students and staff about what items can be recycled in which bins.

Hawkins hopes that recycling and composting programs will at some point be integrated into the school district’s strategic plan and that their efforts at Holmes can serve as model for other schools to follow.

Holmes Green TeamW

Orhan OrgunW

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