On an overcast, rainy afternoon 10 people sit on a covered stone lanai, listening to Bev Bertino give a demonstration on organic plant propagation, when a black chicken briefly disrupts the process. Feathers aplomb, the chicken cuts across the corner of the lanai and flies over the fence, squawking all the while. ‘She’s about to have babies,’ says the homeowner Betty Gearen. ‘She’s a little feisty today.’

The informal setting on Gearen’s lanai belies the seriousness in which Gearen places on sustainability. Since we reported on Gearen’s Pauoa Valley home last year–the Green House–she has held more than 100 workshops on sustainable living, from building grey water systems to making biodiesel to building your own photovoltaic panels. Classes are held on Saturdays, with time off during the holidays and the summer. The Green House also hosts a Keiki Explorer Club, which teaches sustainability to kids through projects like sandcast candles and handmade books.

‘This is something we are doing as a service to the public. We really want to spread education of sustainability,’ says Gearen, who holds two non-paying positions at the Sierra Club. ‘I am worried about children not learning about sustainability. So whether they [receive their education] through making recycled art or recycled garbage into dirt–it’s important that they have an understanding of our connection to the earth. ‘

Classes cost between $10 and $25 and are kept small–15 people maximum. Keiki explorer workshops are $5 or 100 HI-5 bottles or cans. If a class becomes too popular, organizers will add another class. During the past year, the workshops have helped to foster a new kind of community, and this gives 58-year-old grandmother hope for the future.

‘One of the things that is making me very hopeful is the number of regular moms and pops who come,’ Gearen says. ‘They read about it in the paper, and they sign up. So the word is spreading.’

When Gearen, a former art teacher, began building her own closed-loop garden six years ago, she felt alone in the process.

Bev Bertino teaches a class

‘I lived here in the ’70s when there was a shipping strike,’ Gearen says. ‘And people started hoarding. I thought the best way to deal with that is to grow your own food. But as I starting to do the closed sustainable thing, I became very lonely. You are doing it, but you don’t have people to talk to about it. So these classes have created a community of young and old. It’s been a bonding experience.’

Surveying the attendance on a random Saturday, Gearen’s workshop could be a postcard for diversity–young and old, men and women, local and fresh off the boat. Tia Silvasy, a young vermiculturalist, fell in love with the ocean and mountains of Hawai’i and moved here three months ago. In Florida, she participated in non-profit sustainable workshops and says the strong response to Gearen’s workshops is encouraging.

‘We didn’t get the interest or attendance,’ says Silvasy, who will teach workshops in vermiculture, or worm castings.

And though the workshops can be technically advanced like ‘Building Your Own Solar Panels,’ organizers admit that most of the information is readily available on the Internet. ‘We aren’t making this stuff up,’ Gearen says.

But the classes seem to serve a larger purpose. After the plant propagation class finishes, Gearen, Silvasy and others ready the lanai for the next workshop on ‘Building Your Own Solar Panel,’ taught by Jon Abbott. They discuss ideas for community involvement, curbside recycling, zero waste cities and the politics of environmentalism in loose, casual tones.

‘One of the reasons I got involved is because I got very depressed about the environment, what’s happening with the present administration, both locally and nationally,’ Gearen says. ‘And I’ll tell you, getting into this, when you are here teaching and you see how many people want to know about [sustainability], it makes your depression go away because you are seeing every person that leaves, change a little bit. And if they tell one person, then that’s two people. And on an island like this, you can feel the change.’

The Green House
For information on workshops call Betty Gearen at 524-8427 or contact thegreenhousehawaii@verizon.net