Dover celebrates the return of Earth Day Fair

DOVER — Celebrating Earth Day as a community, the Dover Union Free School District was efforvescent with the return of the Earth Day Fair on Friday, April 22.

Held in the Dover Middle School gymnasium from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., this year’s Earth Day Fair drew a lush variety of tables and booths set up by an equally vibrant variety of organizations and groups from throughout the region. The fair welcomed 27 vendors to speak to students about things having to do with the world they live in and ways to help protect it.

“This is amazing,” Dover Middle School Assistant Principal Emily Krieger as she watched the fair unfold from the gym’s sidelines. “This is my first time organizing and facilitating this, and to watch the kids interact with all these organizations and all these people in the community is phenomenal.”

Praising this year’s participants for the information and props they had brought to get students involved in Earth Day, Krieger added, “All the kids are walking out of the gym smiling.”

Indeed, Dover students were seen grinning ear to ear as they circulated the gym, stopping by the different tables to converse with local environmental groups and advocates and learn more about their work preserving and protecting the region’s natural resources.

Experts on hand took pride in answering questions about their programs and services and connecting students with resources in the county and state.

At one table, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service taught students about the value of the Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge. At another table, members of the Dover Pollinator Pathway spoke of the importance of bringing back pollinators through sensible landscaping and gardening. Examples of sensible gardening, according to Dover Conservation Advisory Council member Janet Pickering, include not using pesticides, planting native plants and removing invasive, non-native plants.

“I don’t think people in the town know how special Dover is in terms of biological diversity,” Pickering said, “so I think it’s important to let people know so they can protect and build on Dover’s reputation for biological diversity.”

Officer Charles Eyler III from the New York State Environmental Conservation Police displayed an assortment of animal hides as an example of the illegal wildlife sales his agency seizes, while Sareina Masiero and Susan Iannucci proudly displayed images of diverse bird species and bird nest samples protected in plastic containers.

“It’s always a hit here in Dover,” Masiero said in regard to the Earth Day Fair.

Representing the Lower Hudson Partnership for Regional Invasion Species Management (PRISM), New York-New Jersey Trail Conference Conservation Dogs Program Coordinator Arden Blumenthal outlined its mission to manage and detect invasive species in the area as well as the agency’s Conservation Dogs Program. The program utilizes dogs to detect the invasive plant species humans might otherwise miss.

Along with opportunities to learn more about the community’s resources, volunteer openings were also plentiful at the fair, including with the Friends of the Great Swamp (FrOGS), which invited community members to help preserve and protect the Great Swamp Watershed.

Continuing the Earth Day celebration after school hours, students were also invited to take part in Dover Clean Up Day on Saturday, April 23, at 8 a.m. Meeting at the Boyce Park pavilion in Wingdale, volunteers helped collect trash along town roads to keep their community clean.

From left, Sareina Masiero and Susan Iannucci from the Waterman Bird Club proudly displayed images of diverse bird species and examples of bird nests at their Earth Day table at Dover Middle School. Photo by Kaitlin Lyle