Preserving the legacy of Bay Area Action’s environmental work from 1990–2000 and beyond.
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Bay Area Environmental Peace Action Network (BAEPAN), under the leadership of Owen Byrd, plays a major role in encouraging people to write letters against the first Gulf War.
Butano Forest campaign works to protect ancient redwoods and Douglas fir trees in San Mateo County.
Earth Day 1991 celebrates Working Earth Day by helping employees take measures to make their workplaces more environmentally sound. BAA produces a “Workplace Environmental Audit” and a “Guide to Starting a Workplace Recycling Program.”
Owen Byrd files for Bay Area Action’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.
BAA forms its first board of directors. The “Council of Facilitators” consists of Terry Burke, Owen Byrd, Joan Chaplick (Vice Chair), Peter Drekmeier, Susan Kulakowski, Geoff Nicholls (Chair), Chuck Peterson, Bob Regan, Susan Stansbury, and Bob Valdez.
Six subcommittees are created: (Communications, Finance, Fundraising, Office Structure, Programs, and Volunteers)
The Hundredth Monkey campaign aims to stop nuclear testing in Nevada. BAA activists protest and some are arrested at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. In June the House of Representatives passes HR 3636, the Nuclear Testing Moratorium Act, calling for a year-long moratorium on the detonation of nuclear bombs in Nevada.
Earth Day 1992 focuses on a Voting Earth Day by encouraging citizens to make environmental issues a priority when voting. BAA distributes information about ballot initiatives and candidates to educate voters about their choices.
Students from Menlo-Atherton, Palo Alto, Woodside, Gunn, Castilleja, and Bellarmine High Schools assume leadership of the High Schools Group. Activities included grant writing, outreach, and creek cleanups.
An eco-performance organized by BAA and Earth Circus Performance Troupe at San Francisco’s Federal Building draws attention to the importance of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Several BAA members road-trip to Arizona to bring food and clothing to the Dine people at Big Mountain, sacred ground to both the Hopi and Navajo peoples, threatened by US mining interests.
“After this, we both took up golf during the week and started eating fancy dinners at the local Country Club... Ha. This is not what happened at all. We suck at golf and love eating Guzman Y Gomez.”
Adam, Co-founder of Lumio
The Electric Vehicle Project is launched by David Coale when Earth Day 1990 staffer Will Doolittle donates a 1978 MG Midget with the condition that it be converted to run on electricity.
Bay Area Earth Day 1993 brings together thousands of people from throughout the Peninsula for an eco-fair and concert at Stanford University. Speakers include Congressmember Anna Eshoo, Earth Share President John Robbins, and performers include Michelle Shocked and Peter Apfelbaum.
BAA loses its free home at 504-A Emerson Street and begins the search for a new home. Move-out date is August 15.
The Weeks Street Garden in East Palo Alto is established by EPA-HAS and BAA’s Jim Steinmetz, as an organic food garden with plots for community members.
Drawn-out negotiations to lease the former Bergmann’s Department Store location in Midtown Palo Alto prove fruitless, so BAA finds a home around the corner at 715 Colorado Avenue and sublets office space to a number of other nonprofits and small businesses.
Earth Day 1994 focuses on watershed protection with a Youth Environmental Summit and production of a 30-minute video, “A Creek Runs Through It” about San Francisquito Creek. Nearly 100 people participate in a creek clean-up that removed 11 dump truck loads of trash and garbage from the creek.
Jim Steinmetz and other volunteers establish the Midtown Organic Garden in a vacant lot behind the Palo Alto Co-op Market, a short walk from the new BAA office.
The Anne Frank in the World exhibit brings attention to human rights issues. BAA hosts the international exhibit in Menlo Park and organizes field trips for local schools to visit.
BAA staffer and chef Laura Stec launches Decadent Dinners, savory celebrations that teach the connections between food and the environment.
BAA joins the Devil’s Slide campaign for an environmentally responsible alternative to the freeway proposed over Montara Mountain to prevent further washouts of Highway 1 south of Pacifica on the San Mateo coast.
Earth Day 1995’s theme is Restoring Nature, Restoring Hope, and BAA forms a coalition of 25 environmental groups to organize 14 hands-on restoration projects around the Bay Area. This launches BAA’s Habitat Restoration Project which continues to this day with Grassroots Ecology’s work on local restoration efforts.
Congressmember Anna Eshoo hosts BAA’s public forum on the Endangered Species Act.
The BAA Schools Group is recognized with the 1995 Bay Area Youth Service Award. Also, nine students spend three weeks with EarthWatch in Ontario, Canada, studying old-growth stands within the five-million-hectare Lake Temagami Natural Region.
BAA collaborates with community businesses to host BikeWeek, seven days of free things if you get there by bike, including Bike to Market day, Bike to Breakfast Day, and Bike to Healthclub Day.
Earth Day 1996’s theme is the Planet on Your Plate, with a coalition of 40 organizations and 100 restaurants offering events to educate people about connections between food and the environment. Restaurants serve Earth Day Specials during Earth Week and 20 community gardens offer workshops and work parties. EEAT (the Environmental Eating Action Team) is formed, and hosts the Stanford Business School Noontime Food Fest.
Under the leadership of Sue Nicholls, BAA’s Youth Environmental Action (YEA!) project is established to educate younger students about local environmental issues. The Elementary Outreach Program, designed for students between fourth and sixth grade, focuses on San Francisquito Creek.
Earth Circus Performance Troupe conducts a highly successful two-and-a-half month summer tour in England and Ireland.
Members of the Schools Group convert a VW Rabbit to electric with help from the EV Project.
Voters approve the Devil’s Slide Tunnel Initiative with 74% of San Mateo County voters putting to rest the ill-conceived plan for a freeway over Montara Mountain.
Earth Day 1997’s theme is Forests for the Future and includes three campaigns: The 3-Point Paper Pledge encourages use of tree-free and recycled paper; the Phonebook Forest educates people about the destruction of old-growth forests for producing disposable phone books; and the Adopt-a-Forest campaign encourages people to take steps to save our national forests. The Earth Day Decadent Dinner is the Feast for The Forest, and eater-tains 250 guests, promoting the sustainable practices of over 20 local food companies which sponsored the event.
Under a Stewardship Agreement with the City of Palo Alto, BAA begins the Arastradero Preserve project to dismantle a house and barn on the 609-acre city-owned preserve.
EEAT launches the Peaceable Plate Schools Lunch Program, in collaboration with the Palo Alto Humane Society, using The Full Circle Food Cycle to teach students about food and environment connections.
To improve Stanford’s development plan for the Sand Hill Road corridor, BAA helps launch MPACT, a citizens’ group putting together a ballot initiative campaign with an alternative plan. Although MPACT’s Measure M ultimately only won about 40% of the votes, the campaign brought together new allies and created new thinking about local land use issues.
EEAT works with Hayfields Farm on the “Love Your Mother Brunch,” advocating to establish a CSA (Community Supported Agricultural farm) in Portola Valley.
“Relume was an opportunity for us to build a profitable business, not a startup that bleeds cash, whilst doing what we love to do. It also allows us to learn about all types of businesses and the problems they deal with. These are all opportunities that we could potentially solve for in the future. For now, our goal is simple, we want to build a kickass business which means we really want our customers and the Webflow community to succeed too.”
Dan, Co-founder of Relume
