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!

Now how does this apply to a “cause”? Let’s look at the environment, for example. In addressing environmental issues, a direct and literal way to help the cause would be by planting trees. In order to help this cause, I could literally plant trees for 40 hours a week. The question is: Is this the best use of my time? and, Does this maximize results? The answer to both of these questions is “No.” Despite my green interests, I am a plant killer. Cacti included. Putting me to work planting trees would probably be a disaster and would definitely not lead to maximized benefit for the environmental movement as a whole.

These guys would definitely be better tree-planters than me

(via Hadfield Infant School)

This is why comparative advantage becomes important: you are looking at a big picture--an entire system. In a world without trade, you are operating your own Little House on the Prairie–churning the butter, sewing the clothes, home schooling the kids, growing the vegetables, slaughtering the meat, etc. In a world with trade, you are a magazine editor who goes to the grocery store, sends your kids to school, and you cook your food if you feel like it, otherwise you order delivery.

If planting trees is the 1st degree of environmental action, a 2nd degree would be being the bookkeeper for the tree planting company. This would be an indirect way of contributing to the cause. You aren’t exactly planting the trees, but you are helping that operation run well by providing your expertise with accounting and management. The company is able to plant more trees because you are a great bookkeeper and have saved them money.  If this were me, I would probably be more successful at this job than the tree planting job so there would be a marginal (well, let’s be honest, maybe a massive) increase in efficiency and corresponding increase in overall benefits to the environmental cause. But would this be the best job for me? No, probably not, because I am not a bookkeeper.

So let’s skip a couple of degrees to the main question: “What if what you are best at is dancing? How does that help the environment?” The sky is the limit. If you are a great dancer, you could use dance as a medium for educating others about the importance of trees for carbon sequestration, volunteer performances for climate change fundraisers, donate earnings to environmental nonprofits, or serve as the spokesperson for an organic ballet shoe. These efforts may be 5 or 6 degrees separated from a direct service to the environment, but they are no less important. They may even have greater impact than a direct action. If George Balanchine wanted to help save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would we have told him to quit dancing and camp in the tundra? Maybe, but that would not really be leveraging his comparative advantage. Instead, he could use his celebrity and influence as a great dancer to bring attention to the issue in other ways.

George Balanchine being George Balanchine

While this has been hypothetical, I have a real life example that I think personifies the case. Last week I saw comedian Nick P. Ross perform at I Like You Maude at Bar 4 in Park Slope, and later learned of how he turned his experience with Hodgkins Lymphoma into a comedic performance. He paired two seemingly incongruous elements, comedy and cancer, and found a new and interesting way to address this issue and serve as a source of validation for others who have endured similar experiences. In this Newsweek video Ross explains that his show, “Highly Evolved Human,” walks a fine line between serving as an outlet for his experience via his medium of comedy:

“I don’t think a lot is funny about cancer. And it’s a fine line because what I wrote isn’t making fun of cancer, it’s not saying that cancer is a topic that should be joked about. I’m using more the absurdity of my experience of interacting with people, of stories that I went through, the absurdity of the experience in general.”

Not only is Nick Ross contributing to cancer advocacy through “Highly Evolved Human,” but he is also offering an honest portrayal of his experience by doing what he does best: comedy. While sports training organizations, like Team in Training, provide great opportunities for the general public to fundraise for cancer research and increase cancer awareness and cancer centers, like Siteman Cancer Center, are doing great research on cancer prevention and treatment, Nick has carved out a meaningful niche by just being himself. He offers those affected by cancer an honest portrayal of a difficult and life changing experience.

As Nick shows, you best help the cause by doing what you do best…no matter what that may be. Doing the things you are great at or, better yet, the things you love will always yield the greatest results for a cause you care about no matter how unrelated or indirect they may seem. So go ahead! Get creative and make great things happen!

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

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!

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).