It’s a big world to change, but somebody has to do it - why not kids? Epic Change is seeking to make a difference, through a “pay it forward” model that doesn’t just ask people to reach into their pockets. One of Epic Change’s founders, Stacey Monk, was in Arusha, Tanzania for a few months to volunteer, and came back with her heart bursting. There, she found a small school, called Shepherds Junior Academy, a pre- and primary school of about 170 kids, which had been displaced because the landowner was selling it to a developer for a hotel. These children - in one of the most destitute countries in the entire world - were about to lose their chance at an education they may not ever regain.
Luckily, Stacey’s heart had room for all these kids, and an idea to start Epic Change. Monetarily, here’s Epic Change’s approach: they take donations, large and small, from anyone willing to chip in. They then give an interest-free loan to the targeted project. Giving doesn’t stop there, however. Epic Change then helps the organization to generate income to help pay the loan back; they then recycle the money given back to help fund another project; and so the cycle goes on. It’s a truly monumental approach to giving, much in the vein of Kiva, except you get to see firsthand the changes being made through Epic Change’s website. According to the website, Epic Change has loaned about $30,000 to Shepherds Junior - with that, an acre of land has been purchased, classrooms have been built, and classes started this past March! They have also been paid back about $500 through funds raised by a school performance - a TON of money in Tanzanian terms, and important all the same.
The best part about Epic Change (ok besides helping these beautiful children) is the effort being put into empowering kids (yes, your kids!) to take the initiative towards their own epic changes; a “Kid-Powered Revolution” as they put it. There are many suggestions for FUNdraising events, such as a LemonAID stand; a YouTube group, where kids can post short videos introducing themselves and questions to the children in Tanzania; and a Flickr group for artwork showing what makes your kids happy and sad.
When I told my five year old, normally camera shy daughter about Epic Change and making a video for kids in Africa who need a school, I could see her mind turning. It excited her to know that something as small as talking on camera can help someone across the globe feel like they have support. Please take the time to check out Epic Change’s website - there’s so much amazing information to read, and many opportunities to volunteer and get involved!
Follow Stacey Monk on Twitter
Follow Epic Change on Twitter
It’s no surprise how smart the chocolate industry is - we love chocolate, we always love chocolate, and Valentine’s Day is not an excuse to be eating chocolate. Except for tradition, that is. That being said, there is always a big push for our favorite indulgence this time of year. Here’s something chocolaty you can without all the calories (ok, some of the calories). Sustainable Harvest International, a non-profit agency that helps plant trees in Central and South America, as well as provides long-term assistance to communities for sustainable practices, wants to help keep the organic chocolate industry to thrive. They estimate that over 150,000 cacao trees have been planted over the past two years, providing much needed additional income to the families that harvest the trees, as well as providing shelter for wildlife and reforest hard hit areas.
Their latest newsletter, fittingly named ‘For the Love of Chocolate,’ talks about the wonders of the cacao tree and the benefits of planting new cacao forests. For a $40 donation, an acre of cacao trees will be planted in a select community, along with providing the tools and training to help plant and harvest the trees. In return, you get a special Valentine-themed gift card and a sinfully organic jar of Robin’s Chocolate Sauce. Just the name alone and I’m almost up for an ice-cream sundae…
If you (yes YOU) can’t get enough of chocolate, please try to make your chocolate of choice natural, organic, and free trade. Here is a list of chocolate companies that strive to make quality, sustainable chocolaty goodness. You can find most of these brands in local markets, so feel free to test them all out!
Dagoba Organic Chocolate - ‘chocolate alchemy’ at it’s best!
Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates - check out their Valentine gifts, including chocolate hearts!
Green and Black’s - rich, Fair Trade Certified chocolate products.
Rapunzel - the ‘world’s first’ 100% organic chocolate bar.
Newman’s Own Organics - fair labor-practiced from Central and South America.
Endangered Species Chocolate - 10% of profits help support endangered animals. Shop with a ‘green heart’ this V-day!
Divvies - if you have kids with allergies, give them some good, old-fashioned Valentine cupcakes that are dairy, egg, and peanut and treenut free!
Do you know what ‘vicissitude’ means? If you guessed right, how great does it feel to be sending lunch to a hungry child? What do I mean, you ask? I’m talking about FreeRice, a nonprofit poverty-fighting organization, allows you to sharpen your vocabulary skills while sending much needed rice to countries within the United Nations World Food Program network. For each word you define correctly, FreeRice will donate 20 grains of rice through the UN. Don’t worry about getting a word wrong - the FreeRice program adjusts to your vocab level, and you can even save the setting on your computer to allow FreeRice to keep track of how much you’ve donated.
You may not think about where your next meal is coming from, and 20 grains of rice sounds like rice in a bucket, right? Think about it global terms. Just yesterday, FreeRice reports over 91 million grains of rice have been donated - that’s 91,009,660. Since FreeRice began in October 2007, over 17 billion grains in total have been sent out. Spend a minute playing, learning, and giving. If you have teenagers (especially ones taking the SATs!) sit them down for vocab practice. And be sure to pass FreeRice along to everyone!
Here’s a fun way to play a fast game with your kids online and go a bit of good in the process. Guess the Gift is asking you to - you got it - guess what’s in the big box on the screen. Shake it, X-ray it…you’ll run into some pitfalls, but if you’ve been reading teensygreen, you’ll figure out what’s in there and help disadvantaged kids around the world. I’ve written about this wonderful program a couple of times, and PRIZEY is giving one away - well, now I’ve said too much!
I don’t want to give away even more, but for every 150 guesses made on Guess the Gift, innovative marketing company Resource Interactive will donate an additional one of these amazing products to more deserving kids. So, pass the word along, and keep those guesses coming! You don’t have to be correct for your guess to count, and you can guess as many times as you want!
I don’t celebrate Christmas, but one friend of mine who is in full Navidad force has a wonderful cookie exchange every year that she always lets me taste tag along for. While I love to bake, especially cookies, there’s one brand I could never walk out of Whole Foods without buying/opening/stuffing my face with even before I got to my car. I love love love Dancing Deer Bakery Co., especially their Sugar Cane Lime and Molasses Clove cookies. They just ooze homemade-ness, and the clear packaging screams to be opened. Believe me, they scream…I dare you to NOT click to see their cakes…
For the holiday, nothing can be more rewarding than a cookie house you can build and eat with your kids later! The Sweet Home Gingerbread House Kit contains everything you need to build a little house, including the house template (ie, the box), gingerbread mix, icing mix, a piping bag for the icing, girl and boy cookie cutters, a special house cookie cutter and step-by-step instructions.
Dancing Deer certainly isn’t “sweet” for nothing. While Dancing Deer is neither organic or allergen free, their line of “Sweet Home” products is Dancing Deer’s wonderful philanthropic commitment to help families move permanently out of poverty. Whenever you purchase a “Sweet Home” cake or cookie gift (including the above Gingerbread House), Dancing Deer will donate 35% (!) of the price of the item to education, job training, child care and housing through the organization One Family Inc., a Boston-based non-profit helping to keep Massachusetts families off the street. This year, Dancing Deer employees and volunteers visited 25 family shelters to help spread a little joy and cookies to those in need. Home Sweet Home, indeed!
This month of giving thanks, I’m trying to put a lot of focus on non-profit organizations and goodwill programs that you can help directly. You may have already heard of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, which provides specially designed, durable, packed with activities, kid-friendly laptops to children in developing countries where computers are a scarce commodity. MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte, upon seeing firsthand how computers significantly impact children’s learning abilities, set out to develop a computer specifically to duplicate the effect. The result is the amazing XO computer, designed in collaboration with teachers and computer experts for maximum education (and enjoyment).
Here’s where you come in. For the next two weeks ONLY, you can purchase not one, but two of these unique XO computers for $400. One laptop goes to a child in a designated country, and one goes to a child in your life. Don’t need another computer? One computer is $200, and will bring a child an open door to information, art programs, games, and communication abilities that we take for granted every day. Considering these places can only afford $20 per year on a child at school, I say it’s worth sacrificing Starbucks for a little while and shift that money to where it’s needed much, much more.
As a huge booknerd worm and former book publicist, I can honestly say that books are my life and always will be. The problem is lately, besides not being remotely close to a normal bookstore, I have felt a bit, well, guilty, about buying books. Notebooks, paper, you can find beautiful things in recycled form, but books published with post-consumer paper is tough. In fact, according to the organization Eco-Libris, 20 million trees are cut down each year to use as ‘virgin paper’ for new books published in the US alone, and book publishers print only a tiny amount - from 3% to 10% - of their titles on recycled paper. Ouch!
Eco-Libris is helping to solve this paper problem on many fronts. You can balance out your book buying through ‘buying’ trees to be replanted with one of three Eco-Libris partners - Sustainable Harvest in Central America, RIPPLE Africa, and The Alliance for International Reforestation, also in Central America. Each tree is only one dollar, and you can buy a minimum of five - that’s five trees for five bucks! I asked Raz Godelnik, co-founder of Eco-Libris, why plant in these areas? He explained, “these trees are planted in high ecological and sustainable standards in areas when deforestation is a crucial problem, and planting trees not only helps to fight climate change and conserve soil and water, but also benefits many local people. Latin America and Africa are two regions that are losing their forests at the highest rates.”
Eco-Libris is also becoming a strong voice for changing paper practices with book publishers. Just this month, Simon and Schuster announced it will increase the amount of recycled fibers within its book paper, and about 140 other publishing houses have also made this commitment. That sounds like a big number, but it’s only about .18% of US publishers! Eco-Libris will also help you green your Book Clubs!
Finally (these guys are really busy), Eco-Libris is putting together a “Holiday Green Book Gift Guide”. This week, yours truly is featured! Check out my pick, The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. What are your favorite ‘green’ books for kids?
In Panama, we have already received no less than FOUR holiday toy catalogs, each one filled with more plastic playthings than the next. It’s disheartening. But I fear not. I have to give the moms behind Cool Mom Picks credit - they are tireless researchers, product testers, and all-around amazing at looking out for the well-being of your kids through their just released “Cool Mom Picks Safer Toy Guide 2007″. I am on this thing every day, plotting holiday gifts, baby gifts (my friend Alison is having Halloween twin boys, HANG IN THERE!), and just coveting toys, dolls, pretend food, anything I think either of my kids might love forever. Or play with once. Whatever the case, this resource is a keeper not just for your gift shopping, but for the rest of your kiddie-shopping existence. They break it down from babies to toddlers, cuddling to music, building to knocking down. Guaranteed you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for, whether it’s organic, fair trade, or just overall high quality and long-lasting - without worry of a lead recall or small plastic part keeping you up at night.
I sense a theme this week…Seattle/Bellevue, Washington-area mom Corey Colwell-Lipson started a movement this year that many parents are applauding. While out trick-or-treating with her daughters last year, she found herself cheering the people giving out stickers and bubbles instead of candy. It sparked something, and Green Halloween was born. Green Halloween’s message is simple - while we know that we can’t keep all candy away from our kids, we can replace some of it with healthier or alternative treats. There’s also enhancing the fun of dressing up, decorating your home, and having a fun afternoon with friends walking around the neighborhood (or apartment building - I was a city kid myself). And if you remember carrying around the little orange UNICEF boxes, Green Halloween is also raising money for Treeswing, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading the message of fitness and nutrition to all kids.
Green Halloween is putting the most focus on kids ages 1-5 years old, little ones who aren’t ready for the tricking, but can learn that treating can be a lot more worthwhile with a little effort and some great advice. The most valuable section for everyone is the “Treats, Treasures, and Tips” page, filled with treat-giving alternatives, including small arts and crafts items, money for charity, and organic sweets alternatives. You can email Green Halloween at corey@greenhalloween.com for a “Green Halloween” kit to jumpstart the Hallo-greening of your home and ‘hood. And, if you’re lucky enough to live in the Seattle area, check out these upcoming events! However you stand on Halloween, we think greening any holiday is worthwhile and a breath of fresh air.
And, don’t forget to see below and sign up for our Divvies Halloween cupcake giveaway! Happy Boo-ing!
I’m all about fundraising for my daughter’s school, but it was getting out of control with the cookie dough this month and the candy that month…people got sick of me asking them not only to give money, but for food they probably didn’t want in their house either! Book fairs are a fav, but thinking in an eco-friendly way led me to FundingFactory, a printer cartridge and cell phone recycling program that benefits schools, sports teams, nonprofits, the environment, and everyone’s wallets simultaneously! Sound too good to be true? Seriously, this program is almost too easy to follow - sign up your school or other organization (for FREE) to get a “Jump Start” kit sent to you. There are a ton of resources to help your school get the word out about the program, including posters, drop-off boxes, etc. (again, FREE). You also have on-line tools to help manage the accounts (hello, FREE!), and you can get rewards in cash or through an extensive rewards catalog with school supplies, office supplies, etc. And, landfills will thank you by keeping these items out and keeping the recycling process going!
Also, if you or someone in your family has a business, you can sign up to support a local school or organization you want to benefit from recycling the ink and laser printers in your office. Here’s a list of items FundingFactory recycles, and how much your group can receive per item. Way better than making your kids roam stores with boxes of M&Ms no one will buy and you’ll end up eating anyway…
