EcoMom Alliance: For the children

Julie McMahon Jones greets visitors at the door of her Edina home, waving her hands to stop a guest from removing her rain-soaked shoes.

"No, no, no. This is a shoes-on house," she said. "Have you ever stepped on a Lego?"

She's barefoot herself, padding through the living room to fetch some wine. "Are you a red or a white girl?" she asks. Women cradling glasses gather on sofas surrounding a coffee table that holds bowls of chips and M&Ms and books with titles such as "This is My Planet."

Welcome to an EcoMom Alliance party, the earnest 21st century descendant of the Tupperware party.

The EcoMoms are a fast-growing organization of mostly stay-at-home mothers who are tackling such issues as pollution and sustainability in their communities. Started barely 18 months ago by a mother in California, the group's website now claims 11,000 members around the world.

Jones, the mother of children ages 3, 6 and 8, is an EcoMom community leader. Using EcoMom parties, she is forging ahead with an environmental agenda that was in full swing before she found the group. An EcoMom banner hangs from a table in her living room proclaiming: "Sustain your home, sustain your planet, sustain your self."

"I've always been an organic shopper with a chemical-free home, so when I launched my son to school it was hard," Jones said. "Sure enough, he was exposed to pesticide lawns, tables that are cleaned with bleach and junky food.

"If Edina is so proud of being innovative and progressive, they need to get with it."

Jones and another mom at Highlands Elementary School won an $8,500 grant from a consortium of waste management firms for a pilot program to make four classrooms no-waste environments. She has collected 300 signatures on a petition that calls on Edina's parks and schools to consider organic alternatives to weed killers.

"I have the urgency from my 8-year-old sensitive son, who comes home from school and says, 'Mom, did you know polar bears swim for days and then drown?' " she said. "When you have kids with these big feelings, you have to do something about it."

Getting organized

EcoMom parties are meant to be fun, with wine and treats. Last week, nine women gathered at Jones' house, most of them full-time mothers. About half were relative newcomers from places such as Colorado and Washington, D.C.

The conversation was upbeat when it centered on subjects like connecting kids to nature and organic lawn care. Jones said her kids love natural back-yard play features including a tepee made of evergreen branches.

But the environmental focus inevitably led to weightier conversation, and near the end of the party the mood grew darker. Moms expressed exasperation with kids in the same house who text each other instead of talking. They worried about boys playing soccer on fields that they said reeked of chemicals. And they agonized over a world that sometimes seems to be spinning out of control.

"Every piece of plastic I've ever used on this planet is still here," said Michelle Liem, mentioning a bigger-than-Texas mass of mostly plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean.

Joni Bennett, an Edina City Council member whom Jones invited to the meeting, said she worries about "scared and hopeless" high school kids who wonder what kind of world they're inheriting.

"I don't know why people don't feel the urgency," said Ellen Dryden. "We have to be more mindful of our resources. We could empower our youth."

But they're doing what they can. Karen Heine, troubled by the exhaust spewing from idling cars and buses outside Highland, printed up a pollution fact sheet headlined "Please Turn Off Your Engine." She keeps them in the car and last year passed out 235 copies. The school has put up "no-idling zone" signs.

Heine has declared two weeks in August as no-car time for her family. Her husband drives to work, but Heine and her kids bike or walk everywhere.

Dryden, feeling guilty about all the driving she was doing to get her kids to events, keeps books and computer games in the car to pass time between appointments rather than making wasteful trips home. Her appliances are on power strips that she can turn off at night, to stop passive consumption of electricity.

Jones forgot her reuseable bags on a recent trip to Target, and stunned a cashier when she and the kids tottered out of the store, arms laden with unbagged goods.

At the meeting, Jones and Dryden discovered that both their families had pledged not to buy anything new but essentials for a year. When Dryden's kids wanted to catch tadpoles but had no usable net, they got out a kitchen strainer instead. Jones saves water in a rain barrel. Recycling and composting has reduced the family's weekly garbage to half a bag.

"Can you imagine if everyone did it?" she asked. "The time is now. I feel the momentum."

An uphill battle

But is Edina really ready for parkland covered in dandelions? The school district stopped using weed killers on its property for 15 years, but resumed recently after parents complained that sparse grass made playing fields hard and after some residents said school grounds looked shabby.

Jones makes her case at events such as the city's Energy Fair and by e-mail to a growing network of mothers. She said she generally gets a good reception, though "some people look at you like you have three heads. ... Some people are very attached to their Escalade, and you have to take them along on baby steps."

After her children go to bed, Jones usually spends an hour online on EcoMom business. She has an EcoMom Facebook page, and has found fledgling EcoMom groups in St. Paul and Burnsville.

"I'm a realist; I don't think I'm going to solve global warning," Jones said. "But ... I find it very energizing. And I need that diversion from 'mommy.' All the EcoMoms have confessed that.

"It's good for the Earth, but it's also good for our sanity. You just can't talk about Barney all day. You just can't."

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380