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A voice for the environment
Sierra Club member active in community
By DAN BRANNAN
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For The Telegraph/ERICH KASSLER
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Christine Favilla stands by a tree in Alton Park overlooking the Mississippi River. Favilla is the coordinator of the Three Rivers Project and has been a
member of the Sierra Club for 5 1/2 years.
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The Telegraph
For Christine Favilla, there is probably nothing better than a walk along the Mississippi River bluffs in Alton and Godfrey.
Favilla grew up near the Nature Institute in Godfrey and continues to support the facility and its mission. She has also taken on roles with the Sierra Club in Alton, along with Pride Inc.'s AntiLitter Committee,
the Alton Beautification and Clean City Committee, the Community Cultivators, Godfrey's Arbor Day Planning Committee and Lewis and Clark Community College's Water
Stewardship Committee. She is the Three Rivers Project coordinator for the Sierra Club.
She is also the mother of a 7-year-old boy, Braedon, who goes to West Elementary in Alton, and the wife of Cody Favilla, an attorney for the SimmonsCooper Law Firm.
"I was always outside when I was a young," she said. "It was very wonderful to go out into my back yard that bordered the Olin Nature Preserve and the
Illinois Nature Preserve. My parents, Melvin and Patricia Heffron, still live out there. There was a lot of land out there to explore. I became pretty
active in the environment with field ecology in high school. I loved that course."
Christine's overall diet follows her commitment to nature. She buys a lot of organic products and eats only poultry and fish. She is an avid exercise
enthusiast, training in martial arts with Capoeira, and enjoys swimming.
"I love Pilates and also do yoga for at least a half hour every night," she said. "I lift general free weights."
Favilla said she enjoys working with children and educating youths about the environment. She is found frequently at her son's class.
She has been called a "tree hugger" by some, and her bumper sticker even says "Tree hugging, dirt worshipper."
She was hired by the Sierra Club to bring awareness and education of river management and specifically navigation expansion. Now, her focus is more on air quality and sustainable agriculture.
"I still believe there is hope out there and people active that can and will make a difference," she said about the environment.
Christine met her husband in college in Durango, Colo., and she also attended Illinois College in Jacksonville. She was a sociology major with an environmental policy minor and only about two credits shy of having a
communications minor in college.
She has tried to influence her son's thinking about environmental issues, knowing his generation will have to carryon the fight.
"He definitely entertains himself more outside than in front of the TV," she said. "He has grown up working with me with the children's garden."
The Favilla family has lived in the Alton area for six years. Christine said she and her husband are happy about living here and she looks forward to years ahead protecting nature.
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