Holiday Barnes, center, and a group of costumed kids dance to a drumbeat at the Earth Day Parade in Bend in April. The parade and associated Earth Day Fair are long-standing events produced by the Environmental Center, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary Saturday.

Founded in 1988, the Environmental Center started out as a place where local environmental groups could share their resources and a common space in downtown Bend.

Its members and supporters plan to celebrate the program’s legacy — which among other things includes helping other well-known environmental groups get their start — with a 25th anniversary celebration Saturday (see “If you go”).

They have also been getting ready to take on what the center’s executive director Mike Riley called “the next big issue of our time” with a new initiative that it plans to roll out at the beginning of next year.

“Bend could be doing more — we really could be doing more when it comes to climate change,” Riley said in an interview about the center’s legacy and its plans for the future.

The past

The Environmental Center traces its origins back to 1988, when a group of area residents banded together to support the Oregon Rivers Initiative, a statewide ballot measure that sought to protect nearly 500 miles of the state’s rivers by adding them to the Oregon Scenic Waterways System.

After the ballot measure passed, the center’s founders decided to build upon their success by launching a series of education and action programs designed to address certain environmental issues in the community. It also wanted to continue this partnership by giving other groups a place to come together.

The center moved toward its goal in 1991, when it acquired a former Oregon State Police headquarters building, moved to downtown Bend and turned it into a space where groups like the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which also came from the Oregon Rivers Initiative, could host meetings and office space.

The center has also been hard at work starting or continuing to manage its own programs, including Bend’s annual Earth Day Fair and Parade, which happens every April; Commute Options, which has encouraged Central Oregon residents to take alternate transportation; and the Green Spot Directory, which highlights environmentally friendly businesses and groups.

“Our focus has always been on sustainability,” Riley said.

Five years ago, the Environmental Center joined forces with Resource, a group formerly known as the Bend Recycling Team, and marked the occasion by adopting a new mission statement that mentions its commitment to sustainability and highlights climate change as one of “the big problems of our day.”

The future

Continued global warming could spell some major problems for the Pacific Northwest, including higher temperatures that would make its forests more susceptible to fire, earlier snowmelts that could hamper irrigation supplies, and increased pest attacks that would harm timber production, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“How do we help our community reduce its carbon footprint?” asked Riley, who like many environmentalists believes humans are contributing to climate change.

Building off the success the center saw when it started Commute Options — a program that now operates independently of the Environmental Center — Riley said he’d like to encourage more people to reduce the amount of driving that they do and if possible to ride their bikes or walk when they go to work or out to run an errand.

But for this to happen, he said, the city needs to have a comprehensive system of sidewalks and bike lanes, not a system that works well in some areas only to completely disappear in others.

He said the center’s upcoming Sustainable Neighborhood Project, which it plans to roll out at the beginning of next year, will work to improve the city’s sidewalk and bike lane networks.

Riley said environmental groups across the country have spearheaded similar initiatives in their home cities and thinks that while these projects may not work in every community, they could eventually have a profound impact on the region and its environment.

“When you look around at where the exciting stuff is happening, it really is taking place in the cities,” said Riley, who hopes that as the Environmental Center gets ready to celebrate its next 25 years, it can really have an impact on how its community gets around.

If you go

What: The Environmental Center’s 25th anniversary celebration

When: 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: 16 N.W. Kansas Ave., Bend

Cost: Tickets to the event cost $50 per person and include food and two complimentary drinks. Raffle tickets can be purchased separately at a price of $25 for one ticket, $60 for three tickets or $100 for six tickets.

Contact: www.eventbrite.com/event/8311226101 or 541-385-6908