SHEPHERDSTOWN, W,Va. — Earth Day shouldn't just be about "green, green, green," said Stephanie Unger, organizer of the annual Panhandle Earth Day Celebration on Saturday at Morgans Grove Park.
"It should be more of a celebration of the earth," she said.
Her thoughts run to a community type gathering with music, good food and vendors promoting a variety of save-the-earth-themed homegrown produce and homemade everything from cotton diapers from the Rosebud Diaper Boutique with its "Go Cloth, Go Green" slogan, to Space Lotus Studio's T-shirts and tapestries that have been "tied and dyed with love," cotton puppets and Journalistic Tendencies' notepads made from recycled paper.
A popular stop for kids was the Arts and Humanities Council of Jefferson County's tent where adults were teaching kids how to make "stink-bug catchers" out of sticks, tape and plastic water bottles.
Amber LaFage was taking care of things at the Collective Painting table where three empty canvases were laid out, two large ones for adults and a smaller one for children. People passing by were encouraged to apply their own creative impulses to the canvas, much like a friendship quilt. "Everyone gets a crack at it," LaFage said. Kids were using whatever they can find to paint with. "One used a dandelion, another a rubber duck and one a jar lid," LaFage said.
