Last Friday the Huffington Post asked readers to send us stories and photos of volunteer efforts in the spirit of Earth Day. As usual, readers came up big, providing us with some great anecdotes and pictures.
Earth Day has been taken up as part of a swelling national volunteerism movement. On Tuesday, President Obama visited a D.C. public boarding school, where he signed the Serve America Act, a bill to increase federal support for service. One thing the bill does is increase funding to expand AmeriCorps jobs, which service coordinators tell the Huffington Post are in greater demand than ever.
After signing the bill, the Obamas planted trees along the Anacostia river with the Bidens, Bill Clinton and several students. (Slideshow here.)
Huffington Post readers are on the frontlines of the service trend, joining the thousands who volunteered over the weekend on behalf of the environment. Earth Day Network, in partnership with Green Apple Festival, and with support from Planet Green, organized service projects in America's ten largest cities. Kids fixed up ramshackle buildings near their elementary school playground in Kentucky, urban farmers tended crops in Chicago, and legions of volunteers helped spruce up a park in San Francisco.
Here are some of the photos that volunteers submitted: