Editor’s Note: This story is part of our series “Helping Hands”, which aims to spotlight Johnson Countians doing good in the background of their community. If you have an idea for someone to spotlight in a future “Helping Hands” story, email us at [email protected].

When Terri Baugh walks into Mission’s Sylvester Powell Community Center and sees a full house, it feels to her like “ecstasy.”

“It’s pure ecstasy when you walk in at 9 a.m. on the day of the fair and see all these fabulous companies giving out information,” she said. “It’s just kind of a dream.”

Everyone there has the same goal: to learn from and teach one another about how to keep the planet in tip-top shape. And they’re all there because of Baugh’s efforts, which created the annual Go Green Environmental Fair in Mission.

Held each year, the event aims to educate the community on how to leave the planet just a bit better than they found it. It’s something Baugh said she tries to do herself, both through the event and on her own time.

“It does take time, and you have to have a commitment towards it,” she said. “I feel like all the areas where I have my footprint or my handprint, little by little, I feel like I am educating society.”

This year’s event is this Saturday at the Powell Community Center from 9 a.m. to noon and will feature 50 exhibitors — everyone from the Johnson County K-State Extension to the Kansas City Zoo — there to show how individuals, families and businesses can take small steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

Baugh launched the Go Green fair six years ago

The idea first came to life before the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired by nearby Prairie Village’s annual Earth Fair event.

“I just got to thinking about it, and I thought that there’s no reason why we couldn’t put that together in Mission and invite other cities to collaborate with us,” she said

So Baugh, a member of Mission’s Sustainability Commission, put together a committee and began to brainstorm how to make it happen.

Her group reached out to companies they already knew had sustainability built into their practices, who might want to talk about it with residents. When they reached 15 companies, Baugh decided to go out herself and find more.

“I literally went out and knocked on doors and invited people to come,” she recalled.

What followed was a “fabulous” first Go Green event, Baugh said, with more than 45 companies and lots of intrigued residents.

Today, the free event has the capacity for 50 exhibitors, and there are often more on a waiting list. Eight other northeastern Johnson County cities, besides Mission, now have a hand in organizing the event.

Baugh said several months of planning and organization go into making the Go Green event what it is, even though it lasts just a few hours on a Saturday morning in the fall.

“I always tell people it’s a 12-month project,” she said. “I have wonderful people that work with us — we’re very blessed that way. People are pretty excited about it.”

Baugh has other “green” efforts

When she’s not organizing the Go Green fair, Baugh finds other ways to encourage sustainability with her neighbors.

A a member of the Mission Sustainability Commission, she’s helped the city roll out recycling (and soon, composting) initiatives. She also teaches recycling classes at the Powell Community Center, aiming to educate the community on how to be “super recyclers” with what they dispose of at home.

“I go in and speak to different groups about recycling education because (the guidelines) change so much,” she said. “Every time somebody thinks they know what they’re doing, then they change it.”

Baugh also helps lead a sustainability group at her church in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and she’s also started a collection of recyclable items at her Mission home.

If her neighbors have certain things they don’t want to throw out but don’t know how (or where) to recycle them, they know they can bring them to a box in her front yard. She’s collected items like dental products, holiday lights and old electronics.

Though that began in her own Mission neighborhood, word has gotten out to other parts of the Kansas City metro. One woman came to Mission from her Brookside home to drop off recyclable dental products she wanted to get rid of.

“That’s when you know you’re making a difference,” Baugh said.

Baugh helps out the community in other ways

Baugh’s volunteer “green” efforts go beyond her immediate Mission community in other ways.

She also regularly volunteers with Olathe-based Starfish Project and Flourish, a furniture bank on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metro.

The mission behind Flourish is to provide donated furniture to financially insecure families who cannot afford to furnish their homes.

The common thread in all of this, for Baugh, is the future. Or rather, creating a better one.

“We just all have to do our part,” she said. “I have five grandchildren, and I just feel like everything we’re doing today is going to affect them down the road.”

More Helping Hands: ‘Until hunger is solved’ — These 2 JoCo volunteers don’t want their neighbors to go hungry