The Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District (ERICD) hosted its first-ever Comedy for Conservation Sunday night at Greenvale Vineyards. The sold-out event featured comedian Ashley Gutermuth, with proceeds benefiting ERICD. Gutermuth started the show saying, “This show was billed as ‘Comedy for Conservation’ so of course, I have to recycle jokes.” Of course, she did not reduce/reuse/recycle jokes, and received lots of laughs throughout the evening.
The show covered a range of topics, but highlighted Ashley’s love of ‘plogging.’ Plogging is a combination of jogging and picking up trash, which Ashley has been doing on her runs every day for over two years. She said, “I love jogging and I do it every day, but I realized my arms weren’t doing anything, they were just along for the ride, so that’s how the plogging started. I’ve picked up over 800 pounds of trash in the past two and half years. That amounts to an adult-sized grizzly bear, or seven wheels of parmesan cheese.”
Ashley is a New Jersey-based stand-up comedian and actor. She appeared on ‘The Tonight Show’ with Jimmy Fallon where she was chosen by Jerry Seinfeld to win the ‘Seinfeld Challenge.’ In 2021, Ashley won the headliner category of the US Comedy Contest.
The event was one of a series of Earth Month events hosted by ERICD throughout the month of April. A seedling sale this past Saturday (also at Greenvale Vineyards) distributed almost 1,400 plants that will be planted in the area. “Incorporating more native plants into your home landscape helps attract pollinators that increase crop yields, as well as slow down stormwater,” said Nancy Parker Wilson, ERICD Board of Director’s member and site host for the sale. Two sold-out rain barrel events will take place in the coming weeks and supporters have been actively plogging all month.
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