Thank you to everyone who participated in LA’s “Day of Service,” a project to beautify historic Filipino Town! The amount of community support on Saturday morning was amazing. Early bird volunteers were already combing the nearby streets with rakes and trash bags before we arrived. Although we had spent all night printing the tote bags, it was refreshing to see the excitement and spirit of the community.
All week, news reporters were forecasting showers for Saturday morning. But when Saturday came along, there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. After a smooth drive through LA, we set up shop across from an electric car company and a Heal the Bay booth. The crowd was gathered to the north of the booths where volunteers were busy forming groups and being sent to different parts of the neighborhood to clean. At the same time, a large big rig was giving fruit trees out to residents of LA.
Even before we could finish our setup, visitors were already showing up.
For those of you who didn’t get to see us, our booth consisted of a table top banner (freshly printed from Kinkos), a demo CFL lamp (featured in our blog), a large corkboard (made with real wine corks), bookmarks embedded with flower seeds, tote bags, a newsletter signup sheet printed on banana paper, and the standard informative flyers.
Our efforts paid off when visitors seemed to gather around our booth. Aside from their interest in our huge cork board and free tote bags, we were able to educate part of the community on sustainable alternatives and our efforts. Many of the older generation that we spoke to were surprised to see a CFL bulb in the “normal” shape!
Going green may be the industry of today, but for individuals, green makes sense. Choosing energy efficiency saves money, organic products are healthier and more natural, and planting more fruit trees produces fresh fruit right in the neighborhood.
Our cork board, which was made with hundreds of used bottle corks glued onto a tri-fold display, attracted visitors because it was an interesting piece to look at. It was something they have never seen before and the last place they expected to see wine corks. This was exactly the solution we were trying to make: Recycling.
For the week, I called restaurants to hold their used corks for Tech Go Green. From the local Macaroni Grill, to Fleming’s in El Segundo, I placed my orders in advance. While a few restaurants recycled their corks, the majority of them simply threw them away! This is the beauty of our project. Not only were we creating a display board for our use, but we were reusing corks which were already trash. In the end we had a wonderful centerpiece and a story to tell.
Finally, this brings us to our tote bags. Our mission is to help the community become sustainable and for that reason, we were giving out these reusable bags. Through promoting reusable bags, the dependence of plastic and paper bags are decreased. Many may argue that plastic and paper bags are recyclable, but what is the point? Simply producing, shipping, and recycling the bags over and over again is not sustainable. A huge industry yes, but if one bag could be washed and used for a few years, it would save all the trouble and polluting. That is why the reusable bag is both a cute accessory and a sustainable alternative.
In the end, we were bag-less and exhausted. Hopefully our efforts will have an impact on the community, but right now, let’s hope those bags are used over and over again.
And for the books, we did see the legendary Manny Pacquio and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and we have pictures to prove it!
Thank you Anita Betito from ECO-LA magazine for inviting Tech Go Green to have a booth at LA’s “Day of Service” in historic Filipino Town.
Thank you Brandon Penalosa from Il Fornaio and Jeff Feccia from Fleming’s along with many other restaurants for their cork contribution.
And finally, thanks to all who stopped by our booth to meet us.
