It's Your Oregon: Kristi Kates

Kristi Kates is a mother of two and she runs a daycare where kids learn about nature, the environment, and sustainability. Kristi’s membership at OEC exemplifies her wide-ranging efforts to run an Eco-Healthy child care. She and her students learn about the environment in many ways, including growing an organic vegetable garden, planting flowers and trees, picking up trash from local neighborhoods, and symbolically adopting an endangered animal from the WWF each year (this year they adopted a polar bear). She also educates her class on global warming, endangered species, and green living.

Kristi is a young married mother of two children ages 4 and 6, both very smart and compassionate about “helping Earth.” Kristi talks about what helping Earth means to her, “I began my child care 3 years ago and each year I have grown so much, and plan to continue bettering my business until I can reach my goal of building and opening my own green child care facility. I want to provide an environment where I can continue teaching young minds while expanding my class size to educate more children and families about green living.”  She currently provides care for up to 10 children between ages 2 and 5 years and has her class reading at a high Kindergarten level, with her 4 year olds reading at almost a 1st grade level! “I am so proud of my class and my teaching methods. I love what I do and feel in a way I am making a difference for tomorrow.”

Kristi is a proud member of OEC this is exemplied by her efforts to be an Eco – Healthy  Child Care. “I already practiced green living before becoming a member, but I wanted a “stamp” to “label” my facility as being green to share those values with everyone. I set a personal bar for myself higher and higher to ensure I am always doing the best I can for my class. I think it’s important to show others that it is possible to be a green business and be successful.We need to incorporate green jobs into EVERY community and reward businesses that are green or that go green for their efforts by providing incentives.”. Kristi believes that is just the start, “We need to make vehicles that run on electricity, bio diesel and alternative fuels readily available and at affordable prices, even offer incentives/ greater incentives for those who purchase them. We need to make people aware of what global warming is doing to our environment today, and educate the children so they can continue the work that is being done to make our planet a better place We need to all treat Oregon and our planet how we would like to have it 50 years from today, for our children’s children. Clean air? Beautiful forests? If we want to keep a beautiful future for our next few generations, than we must act today and create it. Oregon offers so much beauty and we must maintain it.”

Kristi loves animals and nature and loves nothing more that spending a day in the wilderness, exploring, teaching, hiking, and camping, being one with nature. I love animals and would help them all if she could, “I currently have 3 cats, 1 dog, and a class guinea pig.”

Sustainable business is a passion for Kristi who says, “Going green is easy, affordable, and realistic. There are so many ways to incorporate green living into your life style. Many steps you take to go green actually save you money. The problem isn’t what will happen to our planet if we don’t change; the problem is that something is going to happen. We need to act today, and even if everyone only incorporated one green step into their daily lives, it does help. An individual CAN make a difference.”

Kristi attributes her love of nature and the Earth to her role model, her mother. “My mother, who unexpectedly died in 2004, was a very motivated individual who spent most of her days helping others around her. She taught me to always be aware of my surroundings and things going on in my family, neighborhood, and across the world."