Sustainability Matters
seriously making sustainability fun
We’re a Virginia grown grassroots nonprofit, cultivating community through conservation.
We bring sustainability to unexpected places. Whether it’s planting native wildflower meadows at landfills, teaching novice gardeners to grow their own food, or helping farmers access funding for conservation practices, we empower individuals, families, and communities to help the environment while helping themselves.
4
Years
250
Programs
25,000
Participants
150
Volunteers
People powered
Community support powers Sustainability Matters; there’s no big money or national organization behind us. Through sheer hard work and a passion for bridge building, we’ve forged dozens of partnerships with federal and state agencies, fellow nonprofits, towns, counties, universities, farms, and businesses. We’ve also nurtured a family of hundreds of individual volunteers and donors who make possible our local festivals and workshops, global webinars, and trailblazing projects like Making Trash Bloom. If you believe sustainability matters, get involved!
Making trash bloom
watch a snapshot of our flagship project
Help us help the birds, the bees, the trees...and you.
Haym’s Hints
leave the leaves
Sustainability Matters’ official spokescat, Haym, purroffers his sustainable savvy for the season: leave those leaves! Actually, skip fall garden cleanup altogether. Leaves mulch your plants over the winter, while offering nutrients to the soil and hibernation habitat to wildlife and overwintering pollinators. Dormant perennials’ seedheads are vital food for winter birds, and the stems provide further shelter for beneficial insects. What remains after the winter can be cleaned up and composted in March, when the world begins to wake up again. Or not cleaned up at all: Mother Nature doesn't sweep her forests, which is why forest soil is the richest in nutrients.
If you must move leaves, rake, don’t blow. Even by power tool standards, leaf blowers are particularly toxic. The fumes poison you and your neighbors, and the noise deafens everyone, especially wildlife who rely on subtle sounds for survival. It also disturbs Haym’s naps, which is a very, very bad thing.
For more timely garden tips from Haym and us, follow our Garden Calendar.
