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Job Title: Executive Director
Job Position: Part-time employee, approximately 20 hours per week with an opportunity for growth. $2000/month salary paid monthly.
Mission: The mission of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition (OVGC) is to advance a green, sustainable, and resilient Ojai Valley through collaboration with community stakeholders.

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OVGC member and local air quality expert Steve Colomé has some useful advice to help you clean up your homes this week:

Continue reading “How to clean up ash after Thomas Fire”

The Coalition will join with Greater Goods and California Solar Electric to launch the first of a monthly gathering series called “Little Footprints.” Beginning at 1pm on Sunday, October 29, the focus will be on ways in which we as a community can more gently impact our environment. Hosting the event will be Greater Goods, the collaborative non-profit space located at 145 W. El Roblar in Meiners Oaks.
Greater Goods founder Vaughn Montgomery plans a smorgasbord of attractions, including the showing of a documentary from surfer and musician Jack Johnson called “The Smog of the Sea”, about the microbead plastics polluting our oceans. The film will be followed by a discussion with scientist Marcus Eriksen & activist Anna Cummins, the husband/wife duo who founded 5 Gyres, one of the most impactful organizations in the world in the effort to clean up our oceans &, simultanesously, ourselves. Montgomery also plans a collaborative “group craft” artwork using plastics gathered at a beach & river clean-up over the weekend. A workshop on how to make some of your own household items will be offered, too.
“We’ll bring bags of trash to Greater Goods on Sunday and string together a big fish to hang in the window for the month,” Montgomery said. “This month we’re going to focus on working to get rid of single-use products. We want to partner with different organizations to give people a sense of what they’re doing in the community.”
Montgomery opened Greater Goods in March of this year with his sister Laurie Cornell. They’ve hosted talks, documentary showings, workshops, music shows, poetry readings, and a wide array of other offerings.
“We’re trying to keep a dynamic sense of programming, as well as a little more of a retail presence, helping artists sell their work,” Montgomery said. “We want it to be interactive and multi-use, like a cafe with poetry and theater and music. We think our culture is pretty fractured and we need a ritual place for gathering where people can talk about what is under-acknowledged, alternative, or even taboo in our world today.“
Montgomery said he knows that eliminating plastics from the ocean could take thousands of years, but — inspired in part by Jack Johnson’s efforts — he’s determined to do what he can to make a start, in collaboration with other groups in Ojai.
“I thought to start, let’s have a potluck, and let’s make it plastic-free, with as much local and organic food as possible,” he said. “Maybe we can launch a tradition of plastics-free potlucks and that will just ripple out into the community and start something here in Ojai.”
Little Footprints will continue to be held on the last Sunday of each month at Greater Goods, featuring a variety of new environmental ideas and proposals, presented by local groups and leaders.
You can RSVP or share the event on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/148513765883853/

Join us for a Water Wise Landscaping Workshop on Saturday, September 30, Yes that is this Saturday!
Would you like to use less water and still have an attractive landscape around your home? Would you like to lower your water bill? Plan to attend a free water wise landscaping workshop hosted by the Ventura River Water District, Casitas Municipal Water District and the Ojai Valley Green Coalition.
After you have planted climate appropriate plants, installed a weather intelligent irrigation controller, and tuned up the irrigation system around your trees, there is still more to do to optimize the use of water for the health of the plants and minimize water use. Come and hear from the experts how it is done!
Location: Oak View Community Park and Resource Center in Oak View at 555 Mahoney Ave, Oak View
Time:9:30 am to 12 pm on Saturday, September 30
What: We will provide an update on our water supplies, tips on ways to improve our drought resiliency by capturing rainwater, reusing greywater, and using climate appropriate plants and efficient irrigation.
Save 30-60 gallons per 1000 square feet each time you water!
Speakers: Bert Rapp on Water Supply, Laura Maher on Rainwater and Greywater management, Dave Williams on Irrigation Efficiency, Renee Roth on Sustainable Landscaping / Plants and Cinnamon McIntosh on common irrigation mistakes.
Attendance is free with a chance to win prizes, including: Water Wise Site Evaluation, Irrigation Audit, Water Wise plants and books. Class size is limited. Pleace call Ventura River Water District to reserve your seat at 646-3403
Thanks to the Ventura River Water District and Casitas Municipal Water District for sponsoring this event!
Help us spread the word on Facebook by sharing the event and inviting your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/1411914978929369/
Bios
Bert Rapp is the General Manager of the Ventura River Water District (http://venturariverwd.com/). Bert is following closely and reporting on the local water situation, along with working with the Upper Ventura Groundwater Management Agency to develop a Groundwater Management Plan. Bert is encouraging all of his customers to use water wisely and not waste it.
Cinnamon McIntosh has worked for water districts in the field of water conservation for 16 years. As a Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor and Native Plant expert, she has assessed landscape water use efficiency at thousands of sites (homes, business, parks, schools, etc.) up and down California. Currently serving Casitas Municipal Water District, Cinnamon says she sees the same irrigation problems again and again and wants to help homeowners identify ways to be more efficient.
Laura Maher is a certified Water Harvesting Practitioner and a Greywater Action installer/educator. Simple, low-impact solutions are her specialty. As a Water Resource Field Specialist for Sierra Watershed Progressive and co-founder of Eco Action Co-op, she works together with other professionals to support watershed and ecological restoration.
Dave Williams has been in the irrigation industry for over a decade. He has helped with large scale commercial water management projects and has attained a Landscape Irrigation Auditors license with the Irrigation Association. He now is the project estimator for Scarlett’s Landscape, Inc. in Ventura.
Renee Roth headed up the Save Our Water Ojai! campaign of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition to help educate residents about Watershed Wise landscaping. With a background in environmental horticulture and landscape design, she promotes sustainable landscape designs to save water, capture rainwater and support healthy soils with the use of climate appropriate plants. She is a certified Irrigation Auditor with the EPA WaterSense program.

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