Get outside! The Green Street Challenge returns to Huntsville

For just one day, Huntsville gained another park for families to enjoy, this one right on Main Street.

It’s the third year that the Green Street Challenge has transformed Main Street thanks to the Downtown Huntsville BIA, Rugged Earth Landscaping and Property Management, and Come Alive Outside. Volunteers laid curb-to-curb sod in front of Town Hall in the early morning hours of August 18 so that it would be ready for the day’s annual Summer Sidewalk Sale.

“We think it’s great to encourage families and kids to come outside and stay outside,” said Lizzie Robinson with the Downtown Huntsville BIA. “It’s beautiful, it gets people to look at the trees and really experience and appreciate what’s outside in our environment.”

Sean Christie, owner of Rugged Earth and also a teacher, says his company is happy to facilitate the challenge. “It’s all about getting kids outside and active, seeing that there’s so much screen time, kids not getting outside and active, parents not taking a part in going outside with the kids and being active,” he said. “Every single person here said they need to be outside more and be more active. It’s a really fun family event that also educates. People are encouraged to read the signage with statistics that Come Alive Outside has brought. It’s pretty eye-opening.”

The sod is donated to Rugged Earth for the event and the company delivers it to Main Street and helps to lay it down and then roll it back up at the end of the day.

In the past, the sod has been donated to Habitat for Humanity. They weren’t able to accept it this year, so some of it has been donated to another organization and some has been sold with proceeds going to an as-yet-undetermined green initiative in Ontario.

The idea began in Picton seven years ago and Huntsville was the third community to come on board the challenge. There are seven Ontario communities participating this year.

“They’ve really represented the cause well, getting kids outside, getting them active, getting parents engaged with their kids and really promoting the beautiful outdoor environment that we have in the cities and communities that we live in,” said Lissa Schoot Uiterkamp from Landscape Ontario and Come Alive Outside. “We provide the space, we provide the toys and it’s the community that does the rest. Kids will come out with their parents and they’ll use pool noodles and they’ll play hockey. It’s this creative thinking that we really want to inspire.” She was delighted to see the Muskoka chairs and picnic tables that Rugged Earth had brought along to provide places for people to sit and enjoy the temporary park.

“In today’s day and age we are getting kids that are more and more attached to their screens, that are not getting outside, they are not getting their daily recommended activity,” said Schoot Uiterkamp. “We want to use these events to show that it is fun to get outside, it is fun to be active. It’s about inspiring people to do this on their own time and to go out to the parks in the community and just really engage outside of their house and the short-sighted screen.”

You can check out the grass on Main Street during the annual Sidewalk Sale today (August 18) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. In addition to the Main Street vendors displaying their wares, you’ll find educational activities from Elephant Thoughts, and music on the Town Hall steps courtesy of the Fernglen Fiddleheads, The Deelies and Billy MacPherson.

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