Throughout the months of March, April and May, the city of San Ramon is hosting events related to the environment, mostly centering around Earth Day in mid-April. These events, known collectively as Earth Quarter, aim to help residents — specifically children — about the planet and the ways people can be more environmentally friendly.
“One issue I have always had with Earth Day is that it’s just a single day and on top of that, though San Ramon hosts an Earth Day Celebration at Forest Home Farm, we don’t typically get a lot of engagement because there are so many other concurrent events happening that day,” Alyse Lightfoot, a Recreation Coordinator for the city of San Ramon, explained. “The hope, of course, was to get people thinking about and excited to celebrate the Earth throughout the year.”
One event intended for the Earth Quarter is the Teen Environment and Stewardship project, which enables teens ages 14-17 to pick and research a subject related to environmental issues in their communities. They are taught different skills and solutions to these issues, with guest speakers there to offer guidance and help them learn. Afterwards, they are able to do a capstone project to be presented either on Earth Day itself or during one of San Ramon’s summer nature camps.
“The hope is that no matter what field the teens that participate end up going into, they take the concepts they learn during Teen Stewardship with them into adulthood to better the communities they live in,” Lightfoot continued.
Another event is the annual tree planting. On April 19, 2025, citizens gathered at Forest Home Farms to watch the planting of a Valley Oak sapling on the farm. Valley Oak trees are native to California, and can live up to 600 years. However, much of its land space has been cleared for agricultural or residential means, and while the plant isn’t endangered, it is a protected species by the state of California.
At the event, residents were able to celebrate Arbor Day, a lesser known holiday on April 25, meant to encourage the planting of trees. In addition, they learned about what it means to be eco-friendly and how better to support the planet through sustainable energy usage.
The event was open to all ages, and had many stations around the farm where people could learn about specific things, such as the importance of windmills and how native plants impact local ecosystems.
The last Earth Quarter event is the nature storytime at the Crow Canyon Gardens. These events, which take place every week or so throughout April and May, aim to teach a younger audience about the different animals and plants that make San Ramon so beautiful. It’s intended for ages zero through five, and lets children and their parents take a walk around the gardens while listening to a story about one of the many themes the event has in place. Blackbirds, bees and frogs are all open topics that the storytime has covered before. The event ran until May 2, 2025.
Additionally, these events are not just limited to Earth Quarter. Year-round, the city and East Bay Parks Services host trail and park cleanups, restoration projects and more that also aim to improve and support the ecosystems that thrive here.
There are birding programs at Annabel Lake, which focuses on native and guest birds in the process of migrating through San Ramon. They have mushroom walks, which highlights fungi at Las Trampas regional park, simulating a traditional “nature walk.” Additionally, they offer Dark Skies walks, where residents can see the city at night and learn about how light pollution affects the animals and people that home here, so there is something for everyone.
Another example of a nature program is the “Nature Letterboxing” event, which encourages people to get outdoors in an elevated, more adult-focused scavenger hunt. Similar to geocaching, letterboxing has participants search for boxes with notes, stamps and fun facts.
“The Nature Letterboxing was designed to be a fun way to get people out into parks they might not spend a lot of time in, or may never have visited before while also connecting with nature,” Lightfoot acknowledged.
Some other programs include year-round birding and foraging workshops, as well as garden speaker talks designed to teach people gardening skills and about the benefits of growing native plants in one’s own backyard. Residents are able to join in any of these events throughout the year, helping to make San Ramon’s natural environment a better, more sustainable place.
“Sometimes I will run into someone who attended one of our programs [and] they will quote a fact they learned at them to me. Always makes me smile. I hope these programs spark curiosity and delight in people, and get them to explore the natural world more on their own too!” Lightfoot concluded.
