A. Lauren Abele

Mark your calendars for Green Edge NYC’s 3rd Birthday Bash!

In celebration of the community-based organization’s third year of connecting “people with businesses, organizations and the resources they need to build a sustainable future” the group will be hosting a blow-out party at littlefield in Brooklyn.

Things you should know:

Tickets are $20 (and include raffle tickets! YESSSS! I am personally hoping to snag the Blades Natural Beauty item. )

The event runs from 7:00 pm-11:00 pm.

From 7:30-8:30 there will be representatives from Root for Trees, Tap It, Brooklyn Green Team, Rising Tide Initiative, and Solar 1 at the nonprofit booths. Now is your chance to meet other awesome environmentally-minded folks doing great things in NYC.

Hope to see you all there!

One of the things I remember most of my study abroad experience with SIT in Australia (which was a nontraditional program focused on Conservation and Natural Resource Management), was something a guest lecturer, Peter Cuming, had said (now, I’m paraphrasing here,this was several years ago): “You best help the cause [the environment], by doing what you do best.” At the time, I remember thinking, “How does that work? What if what you are best at is dancing? How does that help the environment?” A year later I graduated from college with a degree in English Literature–which had been my strongest subject–and (like many English majors before me) thought to myself: “Now what? How exactly am I supposed to help the environment with a degree in literature and a love of Chaucer?”
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Some photos from Green Edge NYC’s Urban Foraging with Leda Meredith (See “A Day in the Park”).

Interested? Upcoming Urban Foraging with Leda Meredith events: Saturday August 15th and Saturday October 10th.

Sunday June 28th I had to pleasure of waking up (relatively) early, lathering on sunscreen, and sporting my sneakers as I ventured over to Prospect Park for Green Edge NYC’s Urban Foraging with Leda Meredith. It was an absolutely beautiful morning and the time just flew by! The twenty(-ish) person group–composed mainly of Brooklynites–was friendly and full of interesting stories. We walked throughout the park while Leda stopped to point out various edible plants found in the middle of Brooklyn. Personal favorites include:

Linden
Day Lilies
June Berries

Before becoming a botanist, Leda was a professional ballet dancer.  In quick biography at the end of our tour, Leda mentioned that her career transition was made possible by a nonprofit organization called Career Transition For Dancers, which sounds like an amazing program! As we sat under a tree passing around her book, Botany, Ballet and Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes, we got to sample some of Leda’s homemade Juneberry & Mullberry Preserves (both of which are found in the Park!). Delicious!

(photo via Leda Meredith)

More on the Green Edge Collaborative NYC:  The Green Edge Collaborative NYC is “a social network that connects people with businesses, organizations and the resources they need to build a sustainable future.” In addition to Urban Foraging tours, Green Edge hosts a number of supper clubs as well as a film series in addition to managing a community calendar.

Check back when I post some more photos from the forage!

I was introduced to the United Nations Environment Programme Twitter account,@UNEPandYou, last Friday when one of the people I follow, @rogerhamilton tweeted–or I should say re-tweeted:

RT @UNEPandYou: Today is World Environment Day -tweet 4 trees and help us reach 10,000 followers! We’ll plant one tree for every follower

This introduction is clearly not for the internet/social media/tech geek savvy among us…but for the rest of us, and just illustrates how social media works and how effective it can be. Here is a screen shot of @UNEPandYou’s page on Friday June 5th, World Environment Day:

9,752 followers and counting...

@UNEPandYou increased their audience with their “Tweet for Trees” Campaign by providing “match” (in the form of trees) for the number of followers they had at the end of the day. This campaign was a great combination of social media marketing (by utilizing Twitter), constituent engagement (by encouraging their Twitter followers to retweet about their campaign), audience expansion (via many, many retweets), and match (10,000 new trees! Who wouldn’t want to participate?)! Now, at the end of their program, UNEP has: (1) a much larger audience and (2) done some great PR.

For more info on re-tweeting, check this out: “HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter” (via @mashable).