ACTIVITIES

Join the 2025 Earth Day Power Hour Clean-up!

Join us on Tuesday, April 22nd (11:59AM - 12:59PM) for the Earth Day SHOWDOWN Power Hour—a fun, fast-paced clean-up challenge open to businesses and teams across Greater Victoria.

Here's how it works:

Grab your team and head out to clean up garbage around your business or team up with another biz in the area (track your team’s trash separately!)
Snap pics: action shots, team photos, weird trash finds.
Post on social media using #CleanUpYYJ and #YYJPowerHour to join the movement and get noticed.
Count your trash: Each piece = one point (yes, even cigarette butts!).
Submit your total for a shot at the Golden Garbage Awards

Award Categories
🌟 Most Garbage Collected
🌀 Most Bizarre Item Found
📦 Largest Item Collected
🎭 Team Spirit Award (costumes, flair, and general awesomeness)

Where?
Anywhere you choose — just make it local! Clean your block, your park, your beach, your alley. Anywhere that needs some love.

Why?
Because Earth Day is the world’s largest environmental movement — and this year’s global theme is "Our Power, Our Planet." Let’s show our collective power through action and keep Victoria shining!

Join the fun with your team by completing the form!

Looking to do something else for Earth Day?
Check out our ideas below

Education is the first step towards environmental conservation. To celebrate Earth Day, get your team together for a workshop, film screening, or a fun environmental learning opportunity. There are plenty of different environmental areas to focus on for your activity, such as:

zero waste living
ocean conservation & protection
tips to cut down on your water and energy consumption
how to start your own backyard compost bin

Showing a environmental documentary can also provide great insight into the challenges we face globally. A few that we could recommend include:

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
Before the Flood
STRAWS

Beach & Community Clean Ups

Every day, our beaches, waterways, parks, and other community areas are polluted with plastics and other non-biodegradable materials. Once they enter our ecosystem they negatively effect our environment, wildlife, and enjoyment of our Island. In particular a large amount of our litter ends up in the marine ecosystem, where it is often consumed by fish, birds, and other sea creatures. In just one hour, your team can collect hundreds, or thousands of pieces of trash!

Get a team of friends, family, or colleagues together and help keep our community areas clean. Instead of throwing all the trash you collect into the garbage can right away, remember it's possible to take your clean up activity one step further by sorting through the waste and recycling the plastic, metals, and Styrofoam pieces when possible! This helps keep unnecessary waste out of our landfills.

Education

Classroom Activities

Earth Day Power Hour is a great way to tie in environmental learnings in the classroom and can help to raise awareness about the importance of protecting our planet and taking action. Environmental classroom activities is a broad topic which can range from crafts to science projects. Here are couple suggested activities:

Gardening & Restoration

Gardening and restoration projects are great for getting your team outdoors and moving around. Your team will feel a sense of accomplishment after one hour of planting, pulling invasive species or repairing local pathways. Here are a couple ideas for your gardening or restoration activity:

Create a herb or veggie garden at your home, work, or school
Help remove invasive species, in particular we have a problem with Scotch Broom on Vancouver Island
Have you noticed your favourite trail is starting to look overgrown? Take your garden clippers and help open the trail back up by trimming back branches and bushes