Westwood Rotary Partners with Local Environmental Organization MEVO to Provide Community Education and Improvements

As part of its ongoing speakers’ series connecting local organizations with the community, the Westwood Rotary recently hosted Eric J. Fuchs-Stengel, Executive Director of MEVO (Mahwah Environmental Volunteers Organization), to discuss the group’s initiatives and volunteer opportunities to make lasting environmental changes throughout the area.

“Economic and community development are among Rotary’s six areas of service,” explained Suzanne Mannion-Hopkins, President of the Westwood Rotary. “By supporting MEVO through volunteering and public awareness initiatives our Club is able to make a difference right here in our community.”

MEVO’s goal is to get people involved with improving society and creating a better future by working to solve environmental problems. The organization’s volunteers coordinate local sustainability and education projects, among them rehabilitating soil erosion, building hiking trails, arranging up-cycle and recycling initiatives, beekeeping workshops, and horticultural therapy programs for the disabled and developmentally delayed.

“When we started out in 2008, MEVO was a bunch of nature-loving teenagers,” said Fuchs-Stengel, who was named New Jersey’s 2013 Environmentalist of the Year from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. “MEVO has grown to be so much more, with 1,500 volunteers of all ages and backgrounds pulling together to heal the natural environment and put an end to environmental degradation.”

MEVO’s Earth Crew, its core group of volunteers, has put in over 20,000 hours of service to execute more than 100 projects throughout Bergen County. One of the largest undertakings is an ongoing initiative to combat illegal dumping at Stag Hill in Mahwah.  Home to members of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation and other Mahwah residents, this land is overrun with construction debris, tires and other trash that pollutes the area as it breaks down.

“Dumping trash is one of the most violent acts you can do to a community because it tells the people there ‘You are trash,’ and we cannot allow this to continue happening,” Fuchs-Stengel told members of the Westwood Rotary during his presentation.

Beginning this July, MEVO will build and maintain a community farm within Saddle River County Park. The Bergen County Parks Department allotted 1.5 acres of an open field for the initiative, which, in addition to producing crops such as tomatoes, peppers and leafy greens, will serve as a year-round education facility available free to the public.

On April 12, the Westwood Rotary will join the Earth Crew and the Volunteer Center of Bergen County for a Family Volunteer Day to help advance some of MEVO’s other farms at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey. To participate in this or other MEVO programs please e-mail Eric at ericjfs@mevoearth.org or call 201-316-4888.

About Westwood Rotary

The Westwood Rotary mobilizes the talents, skills, passions, and networks of its members in support of humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs that touch people’s lives in our local communities and world community by advocating, teaching, and living an example of “Service Above Self.”  The Westwood Rotary’s primary humanitarian projects include Hands Only CPR, Veterans returning from war, Pascack Valley Meals on Wheels, Helping Hands Food Pantry and an ongoing drug awareness campaign.  For more information about the organization go to www.westwoodrotarnj.com.