This week is Earth Week and as we all know, the Kentucky Derby Festival is now in full swing. Thunder has rocked the city, balloons will soon be glowing along the waterfront, and several of my colleagues will be running in the mini-marathon this weekend. The most famous 2 minutes in racing is right around the corner along with the biggest party of the year.
We all know what comes with all this fun and celebration… a lot of visitors to our hometown. We need to make sure that our visitors see what a vital and caring community we live in. In order to do this, we should all remember to take the time to make sure that our streets are clean and our community meeting places are in tip-top shape, not just for the festivities, but for everyday.
Get together with your community members for a weekend of picking up litter from the streets in your neighborhood and let’s spruce up our community. Throw a community wide yard sale. Attendance might be great with all the visitors in town. Afterwards, carpool out to the Derby Festivities to celebrate a job well done or relax by using some of the proceeds to throw a potluck dinner party and watch the Festivities at your local community center. You can donate any leftover proceeds to a local charity.
What are you doing to help make Louisville the ultimate hometown?
Photo credit: kartografia
General
Community, environment, green, Louisville
Do you wish for change but not know how to take action? I’ve got an easy action you can take on March 28th, this Saturday, at 8:30 PM and it’s as simple as flicking a switch.
All you have to do is turn out the lights.
World Wildlife Fund is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour – to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions. Metro United Way will be participating on March 28th at 8:30 PM until early the next morning and we hope you will too.
Learn a little more about Earth Hour and its history from this video: Earth Hour 09
To help you out after 8:30 PM on Saturday, here’s a list of 10 things you can do in the dark:
- Tell ghost stories!
- Go for an evening walk.
- Play hide and seek (indoors or outside!).
- Early bed time!
- Meditate. Ommmmmmm…
- Enjoy a night under the stars- go camping! Make s’mores!
- Take in the stars from your own backyard- identify constellations.
- Play nighttime games like Capture the Flag with a group of friends.
- Get artistic in your driveway with glow-in-the-dark sidewalk chalk.
- Visit your neighbors and ask them to share in Earth Hour by turning out their lights!
Did I leave out your favorite dark-time activity? Share your favorite night-friendly to-dos in the comments!
Photo via Flickr by limonada .
Advocacy, General
Community, environment, green
A new year brings new commitment, new ideas and new opportunities to grow and give back. As an organization, Metro United Way is focused on giving back to the community. I feel that we do this work with great passion for our community. Over the last few months I have also discovered that a great deal of our staff have a passion and love for the environment.
It was with this new knowledge of our staff’s concerns about Metro United Way’s imprint on the environment that the “Green Team” was formed. We were able to meet and discuss several opportunities for us to be more responsible stewards of the planet that has been loaned to us. Some of the immediate “fixes” the Central Services department is currently working on implementing are making reusable plastic cups available for MUW personnel, adjusting thermostats during on and off hours, and increasing staff awareness. There were so many great ideas offered up and I am looking forward to working with this team to find ways of implementing them. I also look forward to sharing those ideas with you over the next few months.
Now, here is the “Ask” as we like to say around here. I am looking for your feedback and ideas/tips you have used at home or in the office that have helped you decrease your impact on the environment. I am open to any suggestions. I have to admit this is a relatively new “environment” (pardon the pun) for us to move in, but it certainly falls in line with living united. Not only with each other, but with all that makes this such a wonderful region to live in.
And now the challenge: if you haven’t thought about what type of imprint you are having on the environment, perhaps January of 2009 is a great time for you to begin doing so. There are so many small ways we can contribute to saving this planet. I recently heard a radio commentator state, and I am paraphrasing, “We do not own the planet on which we live; it is on loan from our children.” - Something to think about, right?
- John Sands, Central Services
Education, General, Health
Community, environment, green, recycling