April 1st
Doug & Amy’s Video Blog Post #4
Final GWG Blog Post
Since this will be our last blog post for the Green Wedding Giveaway campaign, we want to share the details of our community give-back and also wrap-up our impressions from this adventure. Like the other finalists, we found it challenging to put together a give-back event in the short time of the campaign, as well as gather votes and try to get media coverage (probably the hardest part). While it was difficult at times, it was also fun, exciting, and inspiring. It gave us the opportunity to start a dialogue with people that we otherwise would not have had. Everyone we told about Clay Hill Farm’s giveaway thought it was a great idea and wished there were more opportunities like it (we agree!). Overall, the contest reminded us that we have the ability to make a larger, positive impact just by sharing our experiences and continuously seeking to grow greener ourselves.
Our community give-back was to be two events, but sadly, one of the events fell through in the final days. We developed a fun and interactive environmental lesson plan to present to a 3rd grade classroom at a public school in Manhattan, which covered the concepts of environmental connectedness, the Earth as our home, ways to protect the environment, and a lot about waste and landfills (Amy works to reduce methane emissions from landfills at her job). We put a lot of time into it and were very disappointed when we were told that since we are involved in a contest, and receiving the equivalent of “monetary gain” as part of it, we could not publicize our education event with the students. It would be a huge shame to let the time, effort, and the presentation go to waste, so we plan to go back to the school in May, when the contest is no longer perceived as an issue. Also, we’re going to provide the presentation for free on our blog, so that teachers can use it for years to come, perhaps as part of their Earth Day lesson plan.
Fortunately, our event at Pace Law School was a success! With Earth Month’s arrival, we thought it would be nice to hold an event in which we share with our community some practical steps they can take, starting today, to green their lives. E-mails went out to all the faculty, staff, and students this week leading up to the event. We had no idea how many people to expect, but with the help of a few close friends we pulled together a nice spread of Brazilian snacks and drinks to help encourage people to take a little time out of their day and listen to our ideas. We focused on five topics: the importance of reusable shopping bags, eco-friendly shopping guidance, DIY green cleaning products, energy & water saving tips, and electronic recycling. Our talk was informal but lasted for over 15 minutes – I guess we had a lot to say! We’ll be posting photos and video clips from the event on our blog soon (http://douglasandamy.blogspot.com/). Afterward, we spent time with people, answering specific questions they had about making green choices in their lives. It was great and made us realize that our event had actually got people thinking about the changes they can make in their life, and this would have a positive impact. If anyone else is interested in seeing the information sheets we put together for our event, we’ll be making them available on our blog.
Thanks to everyone who has made this whole experience possible – the sponsors, our friends, and everyone who has voted or followed the contest. It’s been an unforgettable experience that we look forward to telling our children and grandchildren about someday. In the meantime, we’re going to keep looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact, and hope you will, as well!
April 1st:
Luke & Cassi’s Video Week #4
Blog Post:
Outside, although it is officially Spring, we are in the midst of a snow/ice storm that has engulfed New England in a heavy wet blanket of snow… just a humble reminder that we are never in full control !
Inside, the locally based diet is still going strong. It has been so nice to reconnect with our locavore ways… such as searching for ingredients, dreaming up recipes, and most importantly rejuvenating the Localrootz Blog ! We have been getting more feedback than ever about what we have been up to in the kitchen as well as people sharing their own great stories about local food projects and resources. It is these connections that that will help set the foundation towards a more sustainable food system as well as a more pleasant community in which we can all enjoy.
Speaking of our great community we really wanted extend an enormous thank you to all the wonderful people who have helped us spread the word about our Localrootz project as well as our campaign to win a Green Wedding at Clay Hill Farm. Just this week we were very excited to see “Maine’s Healthy Cook” Meg Wolff feature us in her monthly newsletter. Check it out HERE ! And for more information about Meg Wolff, her amazing story and to purchase her great books… you should head over to her official website or stop by and say hello next time she is doing a book signing in your area ! Another exciting addition to our media attention this week was the Portland Press Herald’s article… check it out HERE ! We had no idea Avery Yale Kamila, aka Portland Best Foodie Reporter was going to do this for us, and it was so uplifting to see it !
With the voting segment rapidly coming to a close we are excited about how much this contest has helped us connect with our community as well as helped us grow together as a couple. Together we look toward the future and take great pride in the foundation that this great contest has helped provide. Without the extra push from Clay Hill, our family and friends, we don’t think we would ever have shared our passions and shouted our green message so loudly as we we have in these past few weeks.
We have become more aware of our actions and how they can inspire other people to make a difference in the way they live their own lives… whether it be riding a bicycle to work, carpooling, planting a garden, shopping at the farmers market, asking their grocery store to supply more locally sourced produce… the list goes on and on. It is these small actions, that may seem like small drop in a very large ocean, that create long lasting ripple effects that reverberate for the whole world to hear !
So we ask you “How Green Can You Be?” Click here
March 31st
Jeff & Samantha’s Video Blog: Week 4
GWG Blog Post #4
This is our fourth week in the community give back for Clay Hill Farm’s Green Wedding Giveaway Contest. Jeff met with Head of Facilities at WPI this week. He suggested three different spaces that would be good and work for a vegetable garden. Two of the locations that he suggested were the lots that Jeff mentioned in last weeks update. It is nice to know that we were on the same page with location and size. The Head of Facilities is going to meet with the Executive Vice President to verify the land use this coming Tuesday (April 5, 2011). He said that the Executive Vice President usually asks for his recommendations before deciding land use, so it seems like we are in good shape to start the garden when the land thaws. The three lots that the Head of Facilities suggested have no planned use for at least 10 years.
We are ending day 24 of our TrashingtheTrash campaign. We think that we have done remarkably well at this project. As of today all of our kitchen trash fits into one potato chip bag. Our bathroom trash fits in one small container about the size of a plastic grocery bag. If we had sufficient space, a large majority of our bathroom trash could go into compost.
Earlier in the week we made bacon. We bake our bacon in the oven on a broiler pan, but there is still a need to soak up extra grease. We had not thought about this before starting our breakfast for dinner. Without another option for soaking up the grease, we used two paper towels. We did some research online after this incident. A lot of people suggest using (clean) old t-shirts cut up into rags for this sort of clean up. To us, why add lint to our bacon? This reminded us that the point of the contest is to spread the message that everyone has a different shades of green and that regular people can do little things to be greener. This does not mean that we all need to be the very darkest shade of green. The suggestion of old clothes on our bacon, made us realize our shade of green is not quiet that dark!
This week we worked on following up on media contacts. We realized that what we used to consider local papers, when we were living in Maine, no longer considered us locals, since we live in Worcester, even though we will return to Maine someday. Also, papers in Massachusetts do not consider us locals and do not see where the story is, about a couple from Maine trying to win a wedding in Maine. Our success has been with a broader media network. You can check out the blogs that have been done on our campaign in our media tab above.
One bit of media that we are very excited about is with Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS). This is a very well known company in the twelve most northeastern states of the United States. EMS contacted us and asked us to contribute sustainability tips to their blog on a regular basis for their readers! This is a great opportunity for us to have a lasting ripple affect and spread our tips and ideas on greener living for the average person to a larger area of people. For more updates on our TrashingtheTrash campaign, check out our website https://sites.google.com/site/trashingthetrash/
Don’t forget, if you haven’t already; go to www.greenweddinggiveaway.com to vote for Jeff and Samantha!
March 25th
Amy & Douglas’s Video Blog: Week 3
GWG Blog Post #3
This past Saturday we attended a seminar about making DIY green cleaning products. The event was taught by the remarkable Alexandra Zissu, co-author of the book “Planet Home,” a green living expert, environmental health journalist, eco consultant, speaker, and mom. She is extremely knowledgeable on the subject of greening your home, and she encourages and inspires you to make green changes in your daily routines. Alexandra discussed with the group the health and environmental dangers of components found in mainstream cleaning products and taught us how to make five very useful, safe and green products. She also offered some helpful tips on how to green our homes in the most effective ways, such as proper ventilation, sanitizing only when there’s been an illness or when handling food carrying bacteria, and avoiding antibacterial products (especially soaps containing triclosan, an antibacterial and antifungal agent linked to numerous health and environmental concerns). It was a very educational event, and it made us rethink how we’re going to keep our home clean, green and nontoxic going forward (our new commitment: purchase eco-friendly laundry products exclusively, and make all our own cleaning products).
At the end of the workshop, we told the class about the Green Wedding Giveaway contest and their response was heartwarming. We explained to them our story, how we found out about the contest, and what we are hoping to do with our community give-back event. They promised to go home and vote for us and were very curious about what actions we were taking to make our wedding green (something we hope to write about at a later date on our personal blog, http://douglasandamy.blogspot.com/). Much to our delight, Alexandra thought the whole concept of green weddings and the GWG contest was great and wanted to take a video with us to include on her website – how cool?! (watch the video here) Thank you, Alexandra, for opening our eyes to the world of home-made green cleaning products – we are so grateful to have met you!
We’ll be putting this new knowledge to work during our community giveback event next week, as we share this information, along with several other key environmental actions that are a concern of ours, to our friends, neighbors, and peers. We realize that the greatest impact we can have is through education. When people are informed of the risks associated with their current behaviors, and empowered with guidance to make conscious choices, they will make changes. You can’t just tell people to “go green,” you need to show them how and why it’s important. Our goal is to lead by example, share what we know, and constantly strive to learn more and grow greener throughout our lives.
Thanks AGAIN to all our friends, family, and supporters throughout the course of this campaign! We could not do this without you, and are eternally grateful for everything you’ve done. The positive feedback and media coverage we’ve received lets us know that we’re already making an impact, which is a huge boost to our energy after a long work week and campaigning. Next week we’ll be writing about the results of our community give-back event, so we encourage you to check our blog for details as they unfold: http://douglasandamy.blogspot.com/
March 25th
Luke & Cassi’s Video Blog: Week 3
Cassi & I were very honored to be able to use the Farmer’s market as an outlet to get our message of green living out to the world. Usually the market has very strict regulations as to who can set up shop at the market, leaving the vending to farmers and farmers alone ! But since I have helped the farmer’s market in the past by designing the market fliers and promoting it through every and all forms of social media, they decided to make a one time exception for us ! Not only did they allow us to come but they also made us feel so welcome with a special little sign as well as this facebook post…
We used some of my artwork and a couple of our newspaper articles to draw a little crowd over to our table as well as to stimulate some conversation !
We also prepared a 100% local snack…we decided that a Spicy Bean Dip on Buckwheat Rye Crackers would do the trick. It seemed like the best option was to go with a finger food, that way we didn’t have to worry about serving dishes, limiting the amount of waste ! Needless to say they were a big hit and so many people were asking us how we made a local cracker…
In closing we wanted to thank the Winter Farmer’s Market once again and also thank each and everyone who stopped by our table.
For a pictorial display of the above mentioned and to learn more about Cassi & Luke’s progress you can follow them
by visiting their blog www.lukaduke.blogspot.com
and also follow us on twitter @ http://twitter.com/LocalrootZ
March 23rd
Jeff & Samantha’s video blog: Week 3
This is our third update for Clay Hill Farm’s Green Wedding Giveaway Contest. Jeff met with WPI’s president during his office hours to discuss available land. Two different areas of land were identified; the first area is an empty residential lot, just down the street from our apartment; the second area is also I a residential area, which is about 4 lots and is about a block away. The latter may be the best location, as it is closer to water. During Jeff’s meeting, he learned that another student was trying to start a garden. Jeff and the other student are going to meet the director of facilities to choose the best location.
This week we went through our apartment to see all of the green things that we did prior to this community giveback, so that we could share these tips with everyone. One way we save a lot of trash is by bringing our lunches everyday. We initially started this to save money, but it also cut down on our trash. We bring sandwiches in stainless steel containers, rather than plastic bags or containers. We bring stainless steel thermoses for soup and stainless steel bottles for our water. Instead of buying coffee each morning, Samantha makes it using a reusable filter. This is much less expensive that purchasing coffee each morning. Not to mention, no Styrofoam or paper cups for waste!
We started making our own bread after one of Jeff’s college roommates found a loaf of bread after about a month with NO MOLD! Gross!! We decided that we could probably do without all of the preservatives and even make healthy bread by making it ourselves. We started this as a way to eat better; ultimately it saves us money and reduces trash.
This project has not only helped us live greener, but also helps us save money! In Worcester, we purchase trash bags at the grocery store for the weekly collection. Because we not put trash at the curb since we started this campaign, we have already saved two trash bags. After the contest is over, we are going to continue to be minimalists when it comes to our waste and we should only have a trash bag of plastic cereal bags every few months. Stay tuned on our progress by going to our website: https://sites.google.com/site/trashingthetrash/
Don’t forget, if you haven’t already; go to www.greenweddinggiveaway.com to vote for Jeff and Samantha!
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March 18th
Luke & Cassi’s video blog: Week 2
Week 2 Written Blog Entry
Now that we are a couple weeks into the Clay Hill Green Wedding Giveaway campaign we have been so inspired to do our best due to all the wonderful support we have received from our friends, family and some people we do not even know ! We have had random people on the street tell us “good luck with the contest, I voted for you !” its been a great conversation starter and inspires us to keep plugging away with blog updates and community events !
In fact we just had a newspaper reporter over the other day and here is our blog post from that day…
If you want to read the story you can see it here :http://www.independentpub.com/story.asp?pubId=wi&artId=-63077832
Ok, We have alot to do to get ready for more campaigning and community outreach events
Keep informed by checking in at our blog: www.lukaduke.blogspot.com
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March 17th
Douglas & Amy video blog: Week 2
GWG Blog Post #2
Half way there! As we draw closer and closer to our community give-back event, we’ve been thinking about ways in which to encourage folks to rethink some of their regular behaviors and give them a “green make-over.” Some actions, like carrying reusable shopping bags to the grocery store, are very easy to implement and only require a small initial investment. Others are perceived to be expensive, like buying eco-friendly household products. On our latest grocery shopping trip, we wanted to test this theory and see how much more expensive some eco-friendly products are in comparison to their mainstream alternatives. The results may surprise you – they surprised us! The next time you go shopping, take a second look at the range of green products on the shelves in your local stores, as you may be overlooking some eco-friendly and budget-friendly options without even realizing it!
We limited our analysis to compare some Trader Joe’s products to mainstream grocery store products. The mainstream product prices were scaled to match the quantity that TJ’s sells their products in. For example, the price of a 12-roll package of toilet paper was halved in order to compare to TJ’s 6-roll pack price. You can view a table comparing the prices in our blog on the topic: http://douglasandamy.blogspot.com/2011/03/eco-friendly-and-budget-friendly-indeed.html
Five out of the seven products we reviewed were actually cheaper in the eco-friendly version versus the mainstream version. Pretty surprising! Laundry detergent was the big winner, but thinking about it some more, the only explanation we can offer for the stark contrast in pricing is that many detergents are made and sold as “2x concentrated” so that when you buy 50 oz, you’re getting 100 oz of washing power. Some of the detergents included in Amy’s calculation are 2x concentrated, but others are not (checking the website again, we see several 100 oz bottles of regular strength detergent for $15.29, so those are much more expensive than the eco-friendly detergent we bought). At the very least, the comparison shows that this eco-friendly detergent may also be very budget-friendly, and in the worst case, it’s comparably priced to the mainstream detergents that contain troublesome chemicals we want to keep out of our fragile water bodies.
You’ll need to invest a little time pouring over labels and price tags, but it’s rewarding to leave the store knowing you’re minimizing your impact on the environment with the conscious shopping choices you’ve made. The point we want to convey to our community is that the eco-friendly option may also be the budget-friendly option, so keep an open-mind and explore the options available to you.
To learn more, here are a few helpful resources for eco-friendly shopping:
- laundry detergents: http://www.consumersearch.com/laundry-detergent/green-laundry-detergents
- buying guides: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/green-guide/buying-guides/
- home paper products: http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp
- pre- and post-consumer content explained: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-05-05/living/pre.post.consumer.recycling_1_post-consumer-recycled-aluminum-cans-and-newspapers?_s=PM:LIVING
- the impact of phosphates in water: http://www.water-research.net/Watershed/phosphates.htm
Lastly, we want to thank everyone who has gone online to cast their votes all ready, and who are helping us spread our green message and the message of the Green Wedding Giveaway. We seem to be reaching far beyond just the US and Brazil, which is fantastic! We are eager to do more during the next two weeks of the campaign, and will continue to update our blog as much as possible, so please check back from time to time: http://douglasandamy.blogspot.com/
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March 14
Jeff & Samantha’s post: Week 2
This is our second update for Clay Hill Farm’s Green Wedding Giveaway Contest. We sent out a survey to the students at WPI to gauge the interest level in having a garden on campus. About 60% of students are interested in working on a campus garden and around 60% of students would like to get vegetables from a campus garden. Additionally, we decided to add in some questions about farmer’s markets. Currently, there is a farmers’ market approximately once a year. When we asked if people would like to see more farmers’ markets on campus, 80% wanted more. However, about 90% do not feel that when the market is on campus that it is well publicized. WPI’s sustainability task force is in charge of the farmer’s market, so we are going discuss the possibility of increasing the frequency and notification of farmer’s markets on campus.
Also, this week we contacted Worcester’s Regional Environmental Council. The REC has experience in community gardens and they have recently started some gardens. They have curriculums set up to accompany building and maintaining a school garden. We are hoping to adapt this program from elementary to the university level. Later this week, we will get more information on site choice and other key factors surrounding the development of a garden.
We have made great progress in our Trashing the Trash project. We had just a few items of trash, which were mainly plastic packaging, from items purchased before we started our project. No paper towels were used in our home this week!! We have realized that a majority of our kitchen trash came from food packaging for deli and meats. We decided to bring our own containers for the deli and meat counters at the market. We have a little trash in the bathroom. That trash consists of tissues, Q-tips, and floss. For more information on our Trashing the Trash project, please go to our website: https://sites.google.com/site/trashingthetrash/
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March 11, 2011
Luke & Cassi’s Video Post Week 1
As part of our Community Giveback for Clay Hill’s Green Wedding Giveaway we have decided to eat a 100% Maine based diet. What that means is every meal we eat during the 5 week campaign will have been grown and processed in the state in which we live.
Why do we feel eating local is such an important role in living a “green” lifestyle.
Well there are some of the BIG reasons…
March 11, 2011
Douglas & Amy’s Video Post Week 1
Douglas & Amy: GWG Blog Post #1
What a week! Last Friday (March 4) we visited Clay Hill Farm for the first time to attend the sponsor social. We got to meet Jennifer of CHF, one of the contest judges, the other finalists, and a number of the awesome sponsors. You could really feel the positive energy in the room, and how excited everyone is to be associated with the Giveaway – it’s a real honor to be finalists. On our way back home to New York, we couldn’t stop talking about all the ideas that were flowing through our minds after meeting such inspiring people. All of us finalists have a unique shade of green, and we applaud the others for the actions they’ve taken to be green in their lives.
While we are still solidifying the exact details of the give-back event, it will surely include the Pace Law School community, where Douglas is enrolled in the environmental law LLM program. We’d like to attract as many people from White Plains as possible, find out what things they are doing to be green, and help them find some ways in which they can reduce their impact further. It seems like many people want to be greener in their lives, but they’re not sure where to start, or they’re intimidated by all the information out there. We want to help them overcome this hurdle and get them on the green path.
We would like to send a huge “thank you” to all our friends, family, and the folks we haven’t met who have gone online to learn more about the GWG contest and to cast their votes. The support and feedback we are receiving has been tremendously helpful during a long week. While it’s exhausting, the energy of this contest has really reinvigorated our environmental spirits, and we are excited about the potential ripple effects this experience will have on the world around us. It is a great reminder of why we chose to work in the environmental field to begin with. If you’d like to follow along a little more closely, we’ve setup a blog about this adventure: http://douglasandamy.blogspot.com
Lastly, our thoughts go out to the people of Japan in the aftermath of a terrible earthquake and tsunami. The devastation and loss of life we’ve seen on the news is heartbreaking, and the environmental impacts of this disaster are yet to be measured. We are praying that it is not exponentially worsened by a nuclear meltdown.
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March 8, 2011
Jeff & Samantha’s Video Post Week 1
Jeff and Samantha will be doing a community giveback campaign in two parts. Jeff is currently a student at WPI. To give back to that community, we are going to be working on a feasibility study and attempt to start a garden on campus where students can grown their own vegetables. A yearly vegetable garden, where students can learn gardening and see the fruits of their labor year after year, would be a great addition to an already environmentally conscious school. While most people that we have talked to have been very interested in the idea, we do realize there may be a problem that stops the project, such as the school not wanting to donate the land or other similar complications.
For the second part of our community give back campaign, we are going to try to eliminate as much trash as possible from our home life. In the United States, only about 1/3 of our trash is recycled and the rest is burned or sent to landfills [1] . In other parts of the world, such as Germany and the Netherlands, over 2/3 of the waste is being recycled [2]. Over the next few weeks, we will be documenting our adventures to eliminate trash waste and make suggestions for the small changes you can make to have a big impact. We will discuss what we already do to reduce our trash, areas for easy improvement, and areas where we find it takes a bit more work to reduce waste. Hopefully you will become inspired and educated in new ways to reduce your own trash at home! You can follow our progress on www.greenweddinggiveaway.com or on our blog at https://sites.google.com/site/trashingthetrash/.
These two projects will give back to two very different communities in different ways. The TrashingTheTrash blog will impact the online community and people throughout the world. The on campus garden will give back to a smaller and more concentrated community, but will impact people year after year.
Jeff and Samantha welcome any comments, suggestions and questions you may have – jeffsamanthaCHF@gmail.com Don’t forget to vote for us at www.greenweddinggiveaway.com!!
Current Trash State (March 7th):
Today is a good day to start our campaign. The weekly trash collection is tomorrow morning, so we get a fresh start. We are currently located in Worcester, MA, where they have a great recycling program. The city collects nearly all recyclables through their zero sort program. They even offer composters for a reduced rate. However, even with the great opportunities, Worcester falls short of the national average recycling rate.
As a base measurement, we usually create between 1/2 to 3/4 of a bag of trash per week. After investigating this week’s trash, we found that the majority of the material is food packaging, plastic packaging, a couple of take out containers, paper towels, and tissues. A place we will certainly focus on is in the food purchasing, taking care to note the packaging and choose food with less packaging if possible.
I just wanted to let everyone know they van also follow our TrashingTheTrash blog at https://sites.google.com/site/trashingthetrash/ since forgot to mention it in the video.