Going, Going... Green!

Welcome Back Everyone!

Since this is sort of a re-birth for Nonprofits Now (formerly Nonprofit Awareness) I thought this article, generous contributed by Craig Baird last year, about going green was fitting.

I've listed some go green sites below that are worth checking out. 

Craig Baird and his wife Layla, inspired by Earth Day, dedicated one year to green living and blogged (Our Green Year) about it. I I urge everyone to visit Our Green Year and read about the Bairds' incredible journey.

Our Green Year by Craig Baird

"Going green seems to be a fad for a lot of people these days. Whether that is a good or bad thing, I can't really say, but for my wife and I, going green is not a fad but a lifestyle. 

It is hard to believe that we are almost one year from when we started Our Green Year, the initiative to go green with something every single day for an entire year. Over 300 days into, with one more month to go, we have had our lives changed by this quest to be green.

This all started for us on April 20, 2008 when we helped organize a large Earth Day celebration in Trail, British Columbia. After seeing the great response we got, my wife Layla and I decided to do something else to educate people about how they can go green in their lives. So, Our Green Year was born. With the idea of going green every single day for a year and blogging about it, we hoped we could show people all the green things that can be done to help the environment. We also wanted to show our readers that if we could do 365 green things, they could so 10, 20, or 100. We wanted to push the message that every little bit helps, and anything we can do as a collective effort to help the environment matters.

Over the course of Our Green Year, we have completely altered our lifestyles. We now shop at the organic store and buy mostly organic items (even though the milk is about four times as expensive!). We don't eat beef anymore, choosing the environmentally friendly bison alternative, and we have cut our meat intake down from a few times a week to once a month, if that. In addition, we have given away half of what we owned through websites like FreeCycle.com, and we have greatly reduced our own consumption by not buying items we do not need and asking ourselves purchase questions to determine what we do need. We have joined several environmental organizations, and donated to even more. Each week we go to websites to 'Click To Help' various things like rainforests and seals. Our home is kept clean by vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice, with no toxic cleaners to be seen anywhere within our cupboards. We compost all of our biodegradable food and items, we grow our own vegetables and we recycle everything from tin cans and bottles to milk jugs and paper. Through our home office we stay energy efficient and we even implement costly penalties for anyone caught doing something 'un-green'.

It is amazing to think about it now, but a year ago we though going green could just include turning off lights and not wasting energy. It can, but we have learned there is so much more to it. There is a joy to making our own better, ice cream and soap scrubs. We enjoy the smell of fresh bread made in our home, and we take pride in mowing our lawn with just a manual lawnmower. Our minds have been altered by Our Green Year. We look around us now at the consumerism that has degraded our environment and realize that there is so much we can all do to help if we wanted to. We are grateful for the chance to have been able to go green, blog about it and educate others.

Through Our Green Year, we have had a lot of press as well. We have appeared on television three times, on the radio four times, several times in the newspaper and even more on the internet. However, 15-minutes of fame is not why we do this. We speak with the media because we want to spread our message about going green with small things.

One of the most common questions we get with Our Green Year is what are we going to do after it is all over. Well, with the end in sight and our daily blogs coming to an end, I only have one answer to that question, and it is we are just going to keep on trucking our green message and going green in our lives!"

Resources for Going Green:

Giving Living (green-living.com)

Green Living Tips (greenlivingtips.com)

G Living: Modern Green Lifestyle Blog (gliving.com) Making going green cool.

Green Living Magazine (www.greenlivingonline.com)

The Daily Green (thedailygreen.com)