First Ecofestival is all set for Saturday

This Saturday’s first annual Pikes Peak EcoFestival at the Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site is the brainchild of Dianne Bertini. She’s a local stay-at-home mom who came up with the idea for an annual environment-friendly festival after months of bouncing ideas off her friends in a moms walking group that meets each Friday morning at Monument Valley Park.

”I wanted to do something for my community,” she said, “but I’m not an artist. I’m not a musician. I love planning events, bringing people together and making them smile and laugh. So I went big this time.”

Bertini, with volunteer help from a few of her friends, has managed to line up quite a family-friendly festival with some fun quirks. For instance, arrive by “human power” (i.e. bicycle, skateboard, unicycle) and you’ll receive a voucher for a free pint from Bristol Brewing Company. And folks are encouraged to bring their own water bottle for free refills.

There will be yoga and healthy movement classes for all ages. You can bring your old electronic equipment to recycle. Vendors will have products and services on topics like green building, single-stream recycling, and alternative transportation. And local musicians will play their sets throughout the day, which will last from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

In addition to those accoutrements, the day’s schedule is packed with workshops on topics like composting, permaculture, and even a screening of clips from local activist Dave Gardner’s documentary “Hooked on Growth” about the dangers of living unsustainably.

Bertini hopes to hold the event annually at Rock Ledge Ranch and said she looked at many other locations for holding an event, many of them indoors, but they didn’t sit with what she had envisioned.

“We’re very outdoorsy people; we love our trails and our mountains,” she said. “This event is hugely about the environment and I wanted to be out and in it.”

A mom friend suggested the Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site, and when Bertini drove out to see it, she knew it was the right place.

“They’re all about environmental practices out there,” she said. “They depict history through four different time periods and they live like we used to live. They’re not wasteful. They don’t consume a ton and don’t buy for the sake of buying. They grow their own vegetables and have farm animals.”

Bertini is donating all proceeds from the event, which is free to attend with a suggested $3 donation, to the historic site.

Pikes Peak EcoFestival

When: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site at 30th St. and Gateway Road
Workshops
10:30 to 11 a.m.: Composting: Techniques and Applications by Lee Willoughby of the Woodland Park Harvest Center
11 a.m. to noon: Permaculture 101 by Becky Elder of Blue Planet Earthscapes
Noon to 1 p.m.: Structures for extending the garden season by Lee Willoughby of the Woodland Park Harvest Center
Documentary
1:30 to 3 p.m.: A Sustainable Civilization: Are We? This screening and discussion of clips from the documentary, “Hooked on Growth” is by local filmmaker Dave Gardner.