THE CONCEPT I have a vision... My dog Dusty and I used to take walks in the neighborhood nearby downtown Los Gatos and admire the beautiful decorations for Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, 4th of July and Valentines Day. It struck me one day - what about Earth Day? Why can't we celebrate Earth Day in a way that is more personal, more interactive and more engaging? I think that because of the all-encompassing nature of Earth Day that the creativity involved in home decorating would be on a scale we haven't seen before with the other holidays. THE DISPLAYS The displays should be daytime ones, unless alternative energy is being used to light the displays at night. The displays should be exhibited where they can be visible to the public (generally front yards). It would be great if displays could be up for at least two weeks - eg, from April 15th to April 30th. If you have information you want to share with others, feel free to print up (on recycled/tree-free paper, of course!) an information sheet for your visitors that you can leave out somewhere. I think it would be great if organizations - businesses (retail and offices), religious locations, schools, government offices, parks, etc - also participated in the decorations. These are some examples that I had of possible displays. If you have an artist or scientist in the family I'm sure you'll come up with much more interesting ideas, though! *spell out any of the following expressions with colorful strings of trash (eg, plastic and/or aluminum containers): happy earth day, save the planet, peace on earth, save energy, protect the rainforests, protect endangered species, save our oceans, reduce/reuse/recycle, clean air, clean water, clean oceans, healthy forests... *organic gardening/native plants - have some cute displays/signs in your organic garden that educate about organic gardening (eg, worms/composting, beneficial insects, crop rotation, companion plants, wise use of water, etc). *food: have a solar cooker out baking some organic bread for your neighbors. *food: have a fun, educational display showing the health and environmental benefits of a more plant-based diet. *if you have solar panels have a smiling sun on your roof made out of some recycled materials. *toxics - show some homemade alternatives to toxic cleaning products. *make some colorful rainforest creatures from recycled materials and put them in their "natural habitat" showing how they live. *create some art piece made of recycled materials. A lot of people are creating recycled art and you can get some great ideas by seeing what others have done. I would recommend going online (search for environmental art) and you'll get some fascinating ideas. In addition, check out generationgreen.com for great ideas about "trash art". *create a scientific display illustrating solar, hydrogen, wind or human energy. *make a pile of recycled materials with new products embedded in them (eg, recycled tires with a display of recycled rubber mouse pads, door mats, bags, etc or a bicycle decorated with recycled bike photo frames, business card holders, clocks, etc.). *if you have an electric or hybrid car, decorate it also! If you're going to use recycled materials in volumes greater than you can accumulate at home then solicit more from friends, neighbors (maybe they'll let you raid their recycling bins), schools, businesses, and recycling centers. In addition to craigslist, you can check on the CA Calmax portal (materials exchange service) - calrecycle.ca.gov/calmax/ - which routes you to places you can get cheap or low cost materials. If you can do a little tour of your display as a youtube video then perhaps that will encourage more participation and help us to get media coverage. Maybe someone can even do a little tour of an entire neighborhood to generate more buzz. THE AWARD CATEGORIES Doing the Earth Day Home Decorations as a contest will make it a little more fun and add the competitive factor which we seem to love so much. Prizes are environmentally friendly items of small value although I will contact some other eco companies to see if they want to participate -eg maybe Toyota will donate a Prius :). In addition, I will try to get some well respected environmentalists in each community to participate in the judging. Here are the categories: *Most artistic display *Most educational overall *Water conservation *Energy conservation *Renewable/alternative energy *Reduce/Reuse/Recycling *Pollution/toxics *Food and organic gardening *Environmental health connection THE COMMUNITY ORGANIZING My goal is to get at least 3-5 communities to participate in this first year and then perhaps in 2013 we can expand significantly. I have some contacts in the Bay Area and Tahoe that I'm hoping I can get to help organize some communities but I am definitely looking for people to volunteer as community organizers. I would think that people that are great resources in this endeavor would be volunteers and employees of local environmental organizations, teachers, and city employees in environmental outreach positions. When a neighborhood/community does participate, it would be great if they chose a day in the April 15-30 period (eg, a weekend day that didn't conflict with local Earth Day celebrations) for a celebration, block party style. Perhaps the neighborhood could have a potluck or snacks, although any food should be as eco/sustainable as possible - eg, local, vegetarian, organic and generally healthy. There are a lot of the organic/natural food companies that will donate product to nonprofit events and I would be happy to help solicit the donations. Another idea here is to have teachers have field trips to the participating neighborhoods during the week to spend more time educating their students on the displays. I would think that participating students should even get extra school credit for the displays and make presentations to their fellow students. MEDIA I believe local media will love the human interest story here, particularly if they see that children, schools, families, and communities have their heart in this project. The more a community puts some energy into this, the more likely it is that the media will cover this story. If we can get enough participation and enthusiasm in the first year then perhaps we can get some interest in this in 2013 by national media. I will be contacting various environmental groups and green media groups to help once I have confirmation of participating communities. THE POTENTIAL/THE BIG VISION It is so hard to get true environmental reform politically, but we have the power to share our personal environmental progress within our communities and strengthen the movement by letting our neighbors know we care through our Earth Day Home Decorations. We may find out environmentally how caring, knowledgeable, and creative our neighbors really are. In addition, I believe this expression of support for the environmental movement will be heard loud and clear by our politicians and this should help them to understand they need to adopt tough laws protecting our environment. Eventually I believe that we can get thousands of communities to participate, especially given the powerful role that the social media movement will play in helping to promote the concept. I think that once we hit critical mass this concept will take on a life of its own and will even go international! FINAL NOTE I would love suggestions from anyone who shares my vision. I would especially love volunteers who would help promote the idea online or on-ground, get communities involved, and volunteer to be their community's organizer. So... please contact me if you'd like to participate in any way. Thanks!!! Andrea Green Earth Office Supply andrea@greenearthofficesupply.com