Community Environmental Council’s 2014 Earth Day Festival Attended by 37,364 People

Santa Barbara, CA, April 30, 2014 –The Community Environmental Council (CEC) is reporting that 37,364 people attended its 2014 Earth Day Festival this past Saturday and Sunday, April 26 and 27, in Alameda Park. Volunteer crowd counters at the festival’s six entry points tracked attendance for both days of the event.

Hosting one of the largest annual environmental gatherings on the West Coast, CEC reports that:

37,364 people attended the Earth Day Festival. There were no arrests or citations.

1,020 bikes were valet parked by the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition; an estimated 1,000 more were self-parked.

384 people took a ride in an electric vehicle in the event’s Ride & Drive section of the Green Car Show. This included ride and drives in the widely acclaimed Tesla S, Toyota RAV4 EV (the first all-electric SUV on the market), and the Nissan Leaf.

91% of the waste generated was composted, recycled or otherwise diverted from the landfill. All waste was collected and hand-sorted on site by Green Project Consultants, with assistance from the California Conservation Corps.

Approximately 250 volunteers assisted with building, running, and tearing down the festival over the course of five days.

With Santa Barbara widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the modern environmental movement, this year’s theme “Local Roots” encouraged meaningful actions to help make a global impact. The festival was organized around the CEC’s five initiatives: Drive Less, Choose Electric, Go Solar, Ditch Plastic, and Eat Local. At CEC’s booth, 794 pledges were made that — if fulfilled — would prevent approximately 1,631,130 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from being emitted in the atmosphere.

On the Main Stage, County Supervisor Salud Carbajal was presented with the CEC’s 2014 Environmental Hero Award by CEC President and CEO, Dave Davis. “CEC is such an important organization in promoting sustainability in our community,” said Carbajal. “It is a special honor for me to receive this award.”

Santa Barbara Earth Day History:

In the wake of the devastating 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara’s shores, a group of local concerned citizens began talking about a different way of looking at environmental systems. Over the next few years, around the country the environmental movement was born – including the Community Environmental Council, which was incorporated in the spring of 1970. During that time, Senator Gaylord Nelson visited Santa Barbara to view the damage from the oil spill. When he returned to Washington, D.C., he introduced a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth. In CEC’s first act as a newly established non-profit, it hosted one of the first Earth Day celebrations in the U.S. in 1970.

About the Community Environmental Council

Since 1970, the Community Environmental Council (CEC) has led the Santa Barbara region – and at times California and the nation – in creative solutions to some of the toughest environmental problems. Today CEC is focused on eliminating the use of fossil fuels in the Central Coast region through campaigns such as #DriveLess, #ChooseElectric, #GoSolar, #DitchPlastic and #EatLocal.

2014 Earth Day partners:

This year, CEC partnered with LoaTree, New Noise Media Group, Oniracom, Plus One Events, Sprout Up, Learningden Preschool, Cultivate Events, and Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition to produce the festival. Cox Communications was the lead sponsor. Major Media Sponsors were KJEE, KTYD, KLITE, and Entravision. Other Media Sponsors were SB Independent, Parent Click, Noozhawk, and The Sentinel. Major sponsors were MarBorg Industries, Gold Coast Toyota Dealers, Allen Associates Construction, Amtrak, Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, and Classic Party Rentals. Other significant sponsors included Lazy Acres Market, Kleen Kanteen, 1st Solar, City of Santa Barbara, Klean Kanteen, REC Solar, Air Pollution Control District, Central Coast Clean Cities Coalition, Verizon, BMW Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara Nissan.

For more information on CEC:

· Find CEC on the web at www.cecsb.org

· Like CEC on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cecsb

· Follow CEC on Twitter @CECSB and on Instagram @CEC_SB

· Call CEC at 805-963-0583 ext. 100.

For more information or photos of the event:

· www.SBEarthDay.org

· On Facebook, www.facebook.com/sbearthday

· On Twitter @SBEarthday and on Instagram @SB_EarthDay