Help us protect the natural beauty and neighborhood culture we love for generations to come!
ECI serves Hampton Bays, NY with several environmental initiatives, including a local farmers market, free seed libraries at the public library and at our garden, a community composting program, and an organic heritage garden at St. Joseph Villa which generates food donated to the St. Rosalie’s Community Food Pantry for those in need.
Current Initiatives
You are what you eat, and the best way to know the quality of what you are eating is to base your consumption habits on where you live. ECI hosts four dinners a year for ECI Members based on the ancient calendar that guided our foodways: the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, as well as Summer and Winter Solstices. We work with neighborhood food purveyors and culinary experts to provide healthy meals that are organic, sourced locally, and primarily vegan, because our own health is directly related to the health of our ecosystem. Learn More →
The Good Ground Heritage Garden at St. Joseph Villa provides community members with the opportunity to learn hands-on organic gardening skills. The delicious, vitamin-rich, fresh herbs and vegetables are harvested from the garden and donated to local food pantries in Hampton Bays. Organic, heirloom variety seeds are collected from the garden, processed, and made available to the public for free through the Good Ground Seed Library, including the remote seed library at the garden. Learn more about volunteer opportunities!
ECI has set up new Honey Bee beehives in Hampton Bays. The hives will be used as an educational tool in conjunction with adjacent pollinator and vegetable gardens. Bees pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States, but the increased use of pesticides and fungicides has caused a sharp nationwide decline in bee populations and other pollinators. We plan to help rebuild those populations one hive at a time.
Located in a vintage card catalog in the reference section of the Hampton Bays Public Library, with remote extension at the Good Ground Heritage Garden, our seed library enables community members to procure organic vegetable seeds for free as a public benefit. Establishing a seed library is an important step to develop a network of community based seed savers who create locally adapted plant varieties, increase biodiversity, and mitigate the loss of plant gene integrity due to the genetic engineering of commercially produced seeds and plants. Learn More →
🌱 Volunteers Needed! The Good Ground Seed Library is in need of volunteers to help with seed processing (harvesting seeds from collected flowers and pods), seed sorting, restocking the catalog with organized seed packets, and keeping the seed library neat & tidy. Learn More →
An outdoor farmers market in Hampton Bays, at the Hampton Bays Plaza, 190 West Montauk Hwy (Macy’s parking lot) on Thursdays from 3 - 7 pm. Our 2022 season will run from May 5 through September 15. The market has all locally grown, caught, and hand-prepared products. Do all your shopping in one place while supporting local farmers, fishers, and crafters.
ECI also hosts an outdoor Holiday Makers Market at St. Joseph Villa on the first two weekends of each December.
Together, let's make the Hampton Bays a Zero Waste Community! We live in a place whose local economy relies on the health of its natural setting. Unfortunately, 40% of our food and 90% of our plastic ends up in landfills, and single use packaging materials continue to litter the local environment.
The first phase of the Zero Waste Initiative includes a new Community Composting Program for ECI Members, a composting site at the Good Ground Heritage Garden, workshops, forums, and community outreach!
A healthy culture requires a healthy dialogue. Our goal in presenting an ongoing educational series is to engage the community with discussions about the issues that affect our quality of life. At ECI events, the audience learns about our Initiatives, and becomes informed about how to evolve our neighborhood in the most ecologically enlightened way possible. Learn More →
ECI and the Southampton Arts Center will host a film screening of the award-winning documentary Trashed on a future date TBD at the Southampton Arts Center 📽 Stay tuned for ticket details! 🍿