Kevin Riordan: Sustainable Cherry Hill focuses on more than the environment

Sustainable Cherry Hill "isn't only about green, crunchy people. It's about everyday people, too," says Lori Braunstein, founder of the ambitious environmental group.

Like the nonprofit, which an ever-expanding circle of friends and partners is helping her build, Braunstein is driven by global and local concerns.

The all-volunteer Sustainable Cherry Hill educates and organizes the public to address quality-of-life issues - such as access to fresh local food or expansion of bike trails - and has become a player in the civic life of the township, Camden County, and beyond.

Coming events include an information-sharing community forum Wednesday in Stratford and the Art Blooms Earth Festival on April 27 in Cherry Hill. Both aim to provide practical tools for tackling collective or individual projects, such as reducing household waste.

Programs are free and the group has neither membership nor dues.

"In the beginning I really knew nothing about the world where I now spend all my living and sleeping moments," Braunstein, 50, says wryly. "I was just a concerned citizen."

A lifelong township resident who put her speech therapy career on hold to stay home with her two children, Braunstein became concerned about climate change.

"I couldn't sleep thinking, 'How will I explain to my future grandchildren that I did nothing about it?' " she recalls.

At a 2007 Township Council meeting that included a discussion about an environmental action plan, "it occurred to me that [addressing issues] is all about communication and relationships."

Braunstein has a gift for both, says county Freeholder Jeff Nash, liaison to the public park system.

"Lori exemplifies community service," Nash says. "The county has drawn on her expertise, and she's shared it willingly. I'm her biggest fan."

I catch up with Braunstein one morning at Jersey Java & Tea in Haddonfield, among several coffee shops where she opens her laptop, meets allies, makes new friends, and re-caffeinates.

In five years, Sustainable Cherry Hill has attracted about 2,000 people to programs on topics such as organic gardening, rain barrels, and packing a healthy, "waste-free" lunch.

"We're not about telling people what to do or telling them what not to do," Braunstein says. "We're enabling them to make choices."

Responding to my question about the liberal do-gooder stereotype that accompanies most matters sustainable, she points to alliances the organization has made with the business community.

"At first I thought, 'What am I getting involved in?' " recalls Jon Perper, president of the Playdrome Bowling & Entertainment Centers, headquartered in Cherry Hill.

Perper, who describes himself as Republican-leaning, attended a Sustainable Cherry Hill forum in 2008 and "they welcomed me with open arms," he says. "I didn't have to plant daisies or anything."

He liked what he heard about cutting energy costs and later replaced some lights in his three centers with LED systems.

Sustainable Cherry Hill has connected suburb and city by working on projects with the Center for Environmental Transformation in Camden.

Braunstein and other volunteers helped transform a former convent on Ferry Avenue into the center's retreat and education facility.

Camden's regional sewage treatment plant and incinerator benefit the suburbs, says Mark Doorley, president of the center's board. And the people of the city live with the smell and other environmental impacts.

"Lori consistently reminds people that when you talk about sustainability, you can't not talk about social justice," Doorley adds. "You can't have a sustainable system in which some people are bearing an undue burden."