Groups go green for Earth Day, starting with downtown Litchfield

By DOUG HANNEMAN

For the Independent review

Jason Tibbits loves downtown Litchfield so much that when he opened his insurance agency 20 years ago, he picked a spot at a busy intersection along North Sibley Avenue. But with some businesses leaving in recent years, he’s seen a change.

“Downtown has had its challenges with empty buildings and some of the buildings have kind of run down on some hard times,” he said. “And unfortunately, when that happens, it’s not just the insides of the buildings.”

As a solution, Tibbits is working with The Chamber Serving the Meeker County Area and Litchfield Visitors Bureau to sponsor the Good Neighbor Cleanup Challenge. The Thursday, April 19, event will rely on volunteers to spruce up downtown and other neighborhoods by removing leaves and other debris and performing other cleaning tasks.

“There is a lot of beauty in these buildings,” Tibbits said, explaining that a downtown structure often “just needs a little bit of elbow grease and a little love from everybody to be able to reclaim some of its former glory or at least stop it from getting further dilapidated.”

The Cleanup Challenge is the area’s first major Earth Day observance of 2023. Elsewhere in Litchfield, Dassel and Hutchinson, various efforts are underway by nonprofit groups, schools and other organizations to recruit residents to clean yards and parks, participate in horticulture projects, and learn new ways to “green up” their communities.

For Litchfield’s cleanup, Tibbits is supplying volunteers with “goodie bags” containing garbage bags, gloves and snacks. And he’s sponsoring a prize drawing for those who share a picture of their activity on Facebook with the tag @JasonTibbits-StateFarmAgent.

“We’re challenging you to celebrate Earth Day with us!” a poster promoting the event proclaims.

Tibbits said the effort is an “inaugural foray” for his office and the community. He hopes it spreads to schools, churches and other properties throughout the city. “We all have a vested interested in making the community just a little bit nicer than we found it,” he said.

Participation in the event requires preregistration. For more information or to sign up, call 320-693-3404, email jason@tibbits.com, or visit litch.com.

Several other events and activities are planned in Meeker and McLeod to celebrate Earth Day, which has been observed every April 22 since 1970 to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

• At Ripley Elementary School in Litchfield, STEAM teacher Lori Weseman is planning hands-on activities for first-, third- and fourth-graders.
• At Litchfield Public Library, youth services librarian Rachel Clark has set up a display featuring books about conservation and an Earth Day-themed story time. She’s also handing out recycled crayons.
• The Dassel History Center is hosting an Earth-Day-related concert on Friday, April 21, and a microgreens class on Saturday, April 22.
• In Hutchinson, head librarian Katy Hiltner is hosting a story time, book display and other activities.
• Also in Hutchinson, the Hutchinson Area Chamber of Commerce’s leadership group is hosting a Hutch Spring Challenge, which aims to recruit groups to clean up parks.
• Good Courage Farm, an agrarian Christian ministry affiliated with The Episcopal Church in Minnesota, is celebrating a faith-filled Earth Day with the theme “Good Loves Beetles and Badgers: Biodiversity and the Psalms.” The farm is along County Road 115, two miles southwest of Hutchinson.

Details about these events and others will be published next week in both the Litchfield Independent Review and Hutchinson Leader.