A recap of our festival on May 11, 2024
We collectively decided to pull out all the stops and put together (in about six weeks!) our first-ever Love The Land Festival! Replete with a massive fruit and native tree and compost giveaway, the gathering also featured Forest Therapy with Blake Ellis from CSUC's Ecotherapy program, T.E.K. passion and information from Ali Meders-Knight, education about biochar from Ken Scherer at the Biochar Coalition and Johnson-Su composting from PCC's Julie Heath. The beautiful program was rounded out with help from Green Paradise Cafe, Pedal Press, and Chico Creative Reuse, all having a vital presence to make things creative, yummy and fun. Additionally, our friends whom we internally refer to as our "partners", well....they just have our hearts! Not only for the incredible work each organization does, but for how they are always willing to link up and co-create. Our sincerest gratitude goes out to Regenerating Paradise, the Butte County Local Food Network, the Biochar Coalition, the Paradise Seed Swap, the Respectful Revolution Project, the Butte County Fire Safe Council, and BEC- the Butte Environmental Council.
Mike and Jen Petersen completely put their trust in us by allowing us to not only hold the Love The Land Fest on their property, but our Paradise Community Compost project will have one of its compost hubs there moving forward! The Petersons helped day in and day out to get the burn-scarred site property fest-ready, and simply could not have been more gracious or easy to work with.
There are a few other major components that totally made this event a possibility. First, without the wonderful folks at the Arbor Day Foundation and their partnership with FedEx, none of this would have happened. The Blue Oak Collective (our 501c3) and the Camp Fire Restoration Project are proud to partner with both of these fine organizations. THANK YOU!!!
A million thanks to all the volunteers who signed up, showed up, and worked so hard to help! We have to give a shout out to the Tree Team ( (Clara, Eric and Ashley, along with Tree (yep) and Wil Mundy) - they were all AMAZING!! Also, it needs to be stated that the Camp Fire Restoration Project simply would not exist without the dedication and scrappiness of our incredible, hard working, all-woman Board of Directors!! They are the reason CFRP continues. GODDESSES ALL!
THANK YOU to everyone who attended, helped, donated or otherwise supported our Love The Land debut! It was a wonderful venue in which to feature all the ways that CFRP and our partners serve our communities. Let's do it again next year!