Happy Earth Day to all! I have chosen this wonderful day to kick off the first annual Challenge of Late Spring. Sound interesting? Sound fun? Sound like something you would love to do? YES! YES! YES!

Well, let me first take a moment to tell you a little about this exciting Challenge. Spring is a wonderful time for new beginnings. Trees and plants that were once barren are covered in fresh new buds, leaves, and flowers. Everything is turning green and even the sun seems to want to shine more. Our days are getting longer. Sweet baby animals are being born to proud parents that are ready to teach them how to be cows, horses, birds, and sheep. Humans cannot help being effected by all that is taking place in the world around them and we become filled with a new sense of hope and life as everything is being given a fresh start.

This may be a little to cheery for some of you, but I am feelin’ it today.

The first annual Challenge of Late Spring is going to ask people to put that wonderful spring energy towards making changes their lifestyle that will have positive affects on the environment and social justice. The idea is for you to go and talk to as many family members and friends as you can and in a loving way ask them to make one change to their lifestyle that will help the environment and/or social justice.

While the Challenge is to get people to make changes to their lifestyle that will make a difference, it is important that we don’t approach people in a judgmental way. It may take some practice, but try and find a way to communicate with people about the environment in a way that they can hear it.

A few ideas to get your brains started:

• Recycle.
• Start a compost pile (I will be posting easy directions for how to start an outdoor and indoor compost pile).
• Get your name taken off of mailing lists for catalogues (call the customer service number on the catalogue and ask to be removed from their mailing list) and junk mail.
• Buy fair trade, organic, or shade grown coffee (or all 3 if possible).
• Buy sweatshop free t-shirts and other clothing.
• Buy a terra pass for your car.
• Stay at green hotels.
• Buy recycled paper toilet paper, facial tissues, and kitchen rolls.
• Switch to energy star approved light bulbs.
• Buy a share of fruits and veggies from an organic farm or buy them from a local farmer’s market.
• Get educated about human rights violations taking place across the world and find a way to help.
• Volunteer at a women’s shelter, homeless shelter, children’s hospital, etc.
• Pick up trash.
• Start using canvas bags when shopping.

The list could go on and on. However, I want you to be creative and I want to see pictures and hear all about it! If you take a day with a friend or a group of people and go pick up trash I want to see pictures and hear all about it. Please, please share. If it’s ok I want to share your pictures and stories in later posts.

On your mark…..get set…..GO!

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Environment, General, Social Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.