Category Archives: Green Outreach

Do You Need a Reason to Go Barefoot?

going barefoot

Soles4Souls announced that National Barefoot Week is stomping ground again next month, June 1-7, 2010. I have been a fan of Soles4Souls and their efforts for a few years now. Disasters don’t stop happening and people always need help even if it is just receiving a pair of shoes to wear on their feet.

A little closer to home in Nashville where Soles4Souls is based, they have already started responding to the needs of their immediate community by providing shoes and other items of necessity to help people who are still trying to recover from the storms they were hit with earlier this month.

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A New Perspective: Through Endangered Eyes Giveaway

One thing we don’t often talk about on this site is the correlation between climate change and endangered species, and specifically, what we can do to help ensure the myriad species who also currently call this planet “home” remain here for generations to come.

What better way to teach future generations that all creatures great and small are worthy of protection and worthy of life than a beautifully illustrated poetry book on endangered animals?

Through Endangered Eyes is exactly that: an informative and beautifully illustrated poetry book on endangered animals for children.

Through Endangered Eyes: A Poetic Journey into the Wild (Hardcover)

By Rachel Dillon (author and illustrator)

There are 1208 species on the Threatened and Endangered Species List compiled by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Minimizing Your Plastic Footprint: Glass Dharma Giveaway

Keeping the Earth Week fun moving right along, today as promised we have more great green products for you to win, more Earth Day tips, and bonus links to keep you clicking green all week long.

David Leonhardt, a glassblower and the founder of Glass Dharma, the original hand-made glass drinking straw, created his own line of drinking straws to “contribute one solution to the misuse of plastics in our society.”

By now I think most of us understand the over-use of the very non eco-friendly plastic material is a huge environmental problem, one with no clear solution in sight.

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Let’s Get It Started In Here: The Naked Binder Giveaway

History of Earth Day

Most of you have probably heard by now that Earth Day is just around the proverbial corner, slated for this upcoming Wednesday, April 22nd.

I’m sure you’ve seen television spots, heard radio announcements, and read other green sites preparing to embrace the day, and the entire week, with wide open hearts and minds, in the hopes that together we can make a difference for our one and only planet.

Here at 5MinutesForGoingGreen we’re preparing for our own Earth Day shindig of sorts, gearing up to offer a slew of green products for you to read about and win ALL WEEK LONG, in addition to links galore, and helpful tips for how you can maximize your contribution to making our planet a greener place to be, five minutes at a time.

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Around The Greenosphere: Weekly Link Roundup

Here are some of our favorite posts from around the greenosphere this week, to help start your weekend a bit greener.

Monday Inhabitat announced that MIO will be releasing a new green outdoor line for Target, set to be available in stores April 12th. The product assortment includes eight outdoor items made from recycled and renewable materials including a watering can, trowel, cultivator, weeder, mini herb garden, solar lights, hammock and composter ranging in price from $7.99 – $99.99.

Tuesday Dot Earth ran an informative article on climate change and its immediate and long term effects on polar bears.

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Ursa Freedom Project

Bear Confined for Bile FarmingTo many of us, poaching is an unfamiliar term and practice. It happens on African savannahs and involves clandestine ivory sales.

Unfortunately, the face of poaching is a very real and ugly one in more places than we care to think about.

I recently joined a viral action network whose goal is to raise awareness and ignite action to stop a little known poaching practice that is occurring right now- bear bile farming. Posing as buyers and suppliers in the illegal wildlife trade, eco-warriors have taken hidden cameras where some of the most heinous crimes against nature are taking place: on bear bile farms in China.

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Go Green With Your Spring Cleaning

It’s that time of year again to go through our homes, clean out the cobwebs, and freshen up things for spring. I don’t know about you, but this has never been one of my favorite tasks! Nonetheless it needs to be done, so, what better time could there be to start introducing some green cleaning and de-cluttering ideas into our homes? Moreover, why not have some company along the way?

Here are some of my favorite sites and blogs that are taking on this challenge throughout the month of March and the rest of the year:

FlyLady.net– It can’t get more simple than FlyLady!

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Help A Friend And Give Locally

Wellcome Images

For the past few weeks, my family has been preparing for a big move. We are not moving down the street or to the next town, but instead across the country.

During our lives here in our current home, we fortunately did not accumulate a lot of “stuff,” but much of what we have will not be traveling with us. We have decided that the memories created with some of our personal belongings are not worth the expense and time of packing them up and hauling them across country. Don’t get me wrong, we are a sentimental family, but my days of holding onto my lost baby teeth (I kept them way into my college years), have been replaced with a more common sense mentality of only keeping what I am going to use eventually, preferably sometime this year.

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New School Thinking

As we make strides to green our home and our lifestyle, we wanted to share our enthusiasm with the preschool where we send our two sons.

After noticing that the school did not have any recycling bins and the amount of paper scraps in the trash at the end of each session, I started thinking about how to reduce the waste and teach the kids about recycling.

Thankfully the head mistress and teachers have welcomed my suggestions about adding recycling bins in the classes. By allowing me to start with my sons’ classes and the office, it will quickly demonstrate how easy it is while providing an opportunity for the kids to learn about conservation.

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Reflecting On The Best Of 2008

As the end of the year draws near, we all get inundated with the “Best of 2008” programs, lists and commentaries.

Well, as I am a junkie for montages that reflect on what happened over the past year, and how it impacted one’s daily life, I thought I would share my own!

The Best Eco Friendly Changes I Made In 2008:

1. Used Miracle Mulch (eco-friendly coconut)
2. Added weather stripping to conserve energy.
3. Used motion sensors for outdoor lights to save energy. Turned off the porch light whenever we could.
4. Installed ceiling fans throughout the house. Never turned on the AC in 2008!

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