New mural highlights St. Joe’s Earth Day
For the second year in a row, Port St. Joe celebrated Earth Day with a day-long event, featuring a series of experts on environmental issues and highlighted by the unveiling of a new mural in the heart of North Port St. Joe.
Held at the corner of Avenue and MLK on April 26, the free event had lots of stuff for the kids, including a bounce house, but the main focus was for results, a series of remarks tied into the ongoing issues pertaining to land believed to be tainted by toxins remaining since the days of the paper mill and chemical plant.
A series of speakers addressed the gathering, all leading up to the unveiling of a new mural created by New Orleans artist Ocean Clark, a Port St. Joe native who helped lead the high school to four state track and cross country championships between 1994 and 1997.
His mural sports the words “The Future Blooms Today. Plant Hope,” with a drawing of four community activists – Pastor Chester Davis, Minnie Likely, Clarence Monette and Dannie Bolden – in front of a streetscape of North Port St. Joe.
The mural is Clark’s second, the other being one that reads “Save the Coast. Save Our Future” against the background of St. Joe Bay.
Davis offered the welcoming prayer, followed by remarks by Richard Benderson, CEO of North Port St. Joe Community Development Corporation, and Marquita Thompson, president of the North Port St. Joe CDC.
“Today is designed to bring awareness to the area’s environmental issues and educate people on what they can do to preserve the earth,” said Benderson. “Everyone on the planet has a role to play and we want to educate and encourage everyone to do their best and that way our future can inherit the earth.”
A short film by filmmaker Dayna Reggero, on environmental concerns across the globe, which included Port St. Joe as a featured community, was then shown.
Speakers then included Dannie Bolden, president of the Florida Panhandle Minority Communities Climate Change Coalition; Dr. Christian Wells, an anthropology professor and director of the Center for Brownfields Research-Redevelopment at the University of South Florida; Christy McElroy, with the Save Our Wetlands Initiative; Debra Mays and John Ehrman, with the Gulf County Citizens Coalition for a Healthy Community; and Patrick Barnes, a professional geologist and environmental justice advocate who is an advisor to the North Port St. Joe Assessment and Job Training Grant administered by Barnes, Feland and Associates.
Alyssa Portaro, an environmental activist and founder of the Tribal Images Museum, which has broadened into the Habitat Recovery Project along the Gulf Coast, also spoke, as did Port St. Joe Mayor Rex Buzzett.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.