After five years of studying sustainability and how best to address the critical issues of our time, I've reached a singular conclusion. The best way for any of us to change the world is to devote ourselves to bettering a little piece of it. But in 2005, trying to pinpoint my piece proved more challenging than expected. Was it may neighborhood? Was it my friends? Was it my school or was it my church? No, it turned out to be none of the above.
That little piece of the world I needed to change was me. Only after addressing that did everything else fall into place. Since embarking on this journey, I've made green friends, started a green business, built a green home and written a green book. But one thing was still missing: a way to bring it all together. Enter EcoTuesday. Now I'm taking the most important step of all: forging a green community.
Having done volunteer work in one capacity or another since college, I've always found myself contributing the same skills. Call it volunteer coordinator, newcomer's committee, welcome wagon, you name it. While the title would vary, my role remained the same: the "hostess with the mostest." Today I'm thrilled that I get to channel this natural inclination for connecting people into a community where (finally) my interests converge: green business, entrepreneurship, PR, networking, speaking, and of course socializing.
Fortunately for Karen and me, building communities in the 21st century is easier than ever before. With EcoTuesday, we have an instant set of tools to pull people together. I'm excited to have the means to introduce my friends and a place to mingle on a monthly basis. I'm already imagining the synergy when I introduce the alternative energy consultant and the geothermal entrepreneur to the green builder. This is just one of the many chains I look forward to creating amongst like minds.
Still, for others, creating community is more difficult than it used to be. As the slackened economy forces businesses to fold, many are faced with searching for new jobs. Others have grown weary of the grind and are looking for more meaningful work. With such circumstances, more people are seeking a point of entry to a green career path. I'm gratified to use EcoTuesday as a way to introduce such people to green business owners and sustainable companies in the area.
If we each use our EcoTuesday membership to make new friends and connect with others like us, and we continue to connect on a national level, together we can form one of the large sustainability-oriented communities in America. That's a "little piece" of the world with the capacity to ignite sweeping change.
