Jewish Environmental Initiative (JEI) is among the sponsors of “Greening Your Community:  Saving the Planet One Garden at a Time,” featuring meteorologist Mike Roberts and Sweet Potato Project’s Sylvester Brown, Jr. The free communitywide event takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday Sept. 20 at The Ethical Society of St. Louis, 9001 Clayton Road.   

The program will provide information on creating native and pollinator gardens that promote biodiversity as well as community building, and how to create gardens in the community or at a house of worship. The event is sponsored by JEI, a committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council, Missouri Interfaith Power and Light and the U.S. Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter.

The event will feature Roberts and Brown as its two keynote speakers, followed by a panel discussion. Roberts is a former meteorologist for KDSK News Channel 5 and adjunct instructor at St. Louis University in the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Brown is  executive director of The Sweet Potato Project, a program that teaches at risk youth entrepreneurial skills, including urban farming and marketing skills.  

The follow-up panel speakers will provide specific suggestions for creating your own native or community garden. They include K.B. Frazier of the Cultivating Justice Project, Chris Hartley of the Butterfly House, Kim Reiss of Sugar Creek Gardens and Matt Schindler of Gateway Greening. The panel discussion will be moderated by Jean Ponzi, Green Resources Coordinator at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s EarthWays Center.      

The event is free, but registration is required at  http://bit.ly/Garden092016. For more information, contact Gail Wechsler at 314-442-3894 or [email protected].