On Friday, March 11th, Earth Club members spent the day at Manzanita Ridge where Sean Kriletich showed us around his earth-friendly organic farm.  We had lunch with food grown right there on the farm and prepared there by Laurel, Katie, and Cierra. In the afternoon we got to see his bee hives and a demonstration of his ram jet water pump. Kerry Williams, one of the Club advisors, also joined us on this field trip.  It was an education day in a beautiful place that we won't forget for a long time.

On Tuesday, February 15th,  Kevin Dunnigan and Kati Giblin stuck around after school and called publishers asking them to remove unviewed and unused catalog listing from their distribution lists to try to reduce the number of trees that are wasted and energy that is used to sent zillions of catalogs for everything under the precious sun to high school teachers who don't want them or  don't read them or just don't even work at CHS anymore.  We'll fax our requests to those publishers who were closed after hours.  They got through about half the stack that's been building up.  This event was organized by Kevin.

On Friday, February 4th, students and advisors went to the North County Sanitary Landfill and found out that you can't throw it away because there is no 'away'.  Among other things, we learned what the state is doing to make sure our landfills don't pollute the groundwater.  After that we traveled to the Waste Management Corporation's recycling site and learned what happens to all of the bottles and can the Earth Club collects.  This was a valuable field trip because we now know that the state is trying to protect the environment from what we throw away.

On Saturday, December 4th, Earth Club students and advisors gave away compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's) at three locations around San Andreas: Kellys Drugs, Treats, and Mark Twain St. Josephs Hospital .  Members also handed out literature on CFL's created by the club and designed by Brittany Cox shown here in the picture talking to a community member.  The literature explained the benefits of using CFL's to save carbon and reduce the cost of lighting.  All of this was possible because of a grant from the CUSD Educational Foundation,  the generosity of Fred Lavaroni at Treats, and the work of the CFL Giveaway Project group headed by Michelle Grawet.

On November 19th Earth Club members joined with Interact and Faith Club at the Food Bank to sort donated food, pack bags and boxes, and help send out publications.  Over 30 students were in attendance logging over a 100 person-hours of volunteer work.  "I feel really good about what I did today." was the refrain heard from the volunteers.  One of our club goals this year was to work together with other clubs.  This was a day when we met our goal and helped support the needy families in Calaveras County.

On October 12th Earth Club members and advisors packed up food from the Food Bank and the next day Kati, Ashleigh, Ashley and JP went out to West Point where they toured the West Point Elementary community garden and then helped the Food Bank distribute food to local residents in need.  As a result of our discussion of nutritious food Ashley decide to join the school Food Advisory Committee and Kati reported to the Club on the trip and the possible long term project of starting a community garden at the high school.

Earth Club's first field trip for the 2010-11 school year was out to West Point where we met with representatives from the Global Arc Project touring the west coast promoting research and education in sustainable practices.  We got a tour of SolTrekker, a bio-diesel, solar powered, rainwater collecting, composting van that symbolizes the future of the planet if we are going to survive through this century.

Earth Club members participated in the Hogan Dam Clean Up Day activities sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers on Saturday, April 17th. Members cleared brush from under newly-planted trees and did trail work at Whiskey Creek Campground.

Earth Club cleaned up Highway 49 outside of        

San Andreas on the morning of Saturday, February 20th. 

Contact Jim Pesout at jpesout@calaveras.k12.ca.us or

754-1811 Ext: 5218 if you'd like to help

on our next clean up.

Earth Club members are now helping teachers STOP    

Catalog Abuse by calling companies and asking that teachers' names be taken OFF their mailing list. 

We recycle all of the school's bottles, cans, and paper, support a monthly raffle at Treats to reduce the abuse of plastic bags, plant trees, give away CFL's and re-usable grocery bags, grow seeds for community gardens, volunteer at the food bank, recycle batteries and CD's, stop the mailing of catalogs, clean up the highway, commission environment murals and find new and exciting ways to get the word out that now's the time to take action to support our planet.

Email Jim Pesout at jjpesout@calaveras.k12.ca.us or call him at 754-1811 Ext: 5218 to offer your help.  You can also come to an Earth Club meeting which are held every Thursday at lunchtime at 11:30 in room 18 at Calaveras High School.  Come and meet the wonderful, dedicated students who are the foundation of this club.