Earth Day in Oregon
While Earth Day may officially be today, it was Earth Day all weekend in Oregon.
To kick it off, Senator Wyden visited Jefferson High School’s carbon footprint fair. There he met with students from Jefferson High and Vernon Elementary and had the privilege of meeting Angeleesah Frierson- a Jefferson High student recently awarded with the prestigious Gates Millennium scholarship.
From Portland it was south, to continue honoring Earth Day in the city that has been emphasizing sustainability since before there was an Earth Day—Eugene! There Senator Wyden visited Arcimoto- a Eugene-based electric vehicle company- and drove off to EWEB’s Earth day celebration in an Arcimoto electric vehicle. He then headed over to Springfield for Sprout’s “Stalkholder Meeting” organized by the Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation (NEDCO) to support healthfulness through local and sustainable agriculture.
The Earth Day festivities wrapped up in Medford, where Senator Wyden partnered with members of the Rogue Valley Clean Cities Coalition to talk about the economic and environmental benefits of declining natural gas prices. The news conference was held at Rogue Valley Transit District, which has been using compressed natural gas in its buses for 20 years and 2 of Medford’s new garbage trucks are now powered by CNG!
In addition to celebrating sustainability, Senator Wyden had a fantastic Q&A with the innovators at Thetus Corporation, spoke at the Oregon PTA’s 100th Leadership Conference, and participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony with Representative Peter DeFazio for the new University of Oregon Student Veteran Center.
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