08/15/2009 20:22 Filed in:
recycle | AlishiaAs a fundraiser and as a way to provide people with new ways o be environmentally friendly, the Green Keene Teens have been selling Greenciles. Greenciles are pencils made from recycled newspaper. Since the pencils are made of recycled newpaper the shavings can be put into the recycling bin to be recycled! Anyway, my dad works at Hamshaws, which is a local lumber store. I’m happy to announce that Hamshaws has recently become an outlet for the sale of the Greenciles. This is exciting because now more people can use Greenciles.
Towards the end of school last year, I started to ask if any of my teachers would want to buy Greenciles to use in the classroom. To my surprise, not many teachers wanted to. One day I asked my English teacher if he wanted to buy some Greenciles. He told me that it would be great to use the greenciles in school, but, unfortunately he declined to buy any himself. Instead of just turning me away he gave me advice. He thought it would be a good idea if I asked the school board if it was possible to put the Greenciles in the school budget. I talked with the administration, and after some consideration, they decided that Greenciles couldn’t be used, but a similar pencil by Papermate was put on the list.
Tags: fundraising, School
05/17/2009 19:38 Filed in:
meetings | LucyAt today’s meeting the focus was on fundraising and summer events.
I reiterated myself again telling everyone what Punta Mona was and I wanted the club to go there, and that the trip fundraising was going on. I urged them to start really making an effort so we can make the money for everyone who wants to go. It was suggested that we ask each member to pay for an amount of the trip on their own. This would help the club be not have a terribly big amount to raise.
Laura talked to the group about scheduling a day that Green Keene Teens would be at the Farmer’s Market here in Keene. She suggested that we plan a Saturday in June to do it. Scheduling the specific day will happen in the next week or so.
Brea told us a little bit about Harrisville’s Old Home Days that is scheduled around the second week of July. The event sounds like it would be a great place for GKT to sell products and promote being green! We talked about making things for raffles and maybe doing a kids game or craft.
We also brainstormed fundraising ideas. Many good ideas were thrown up in the air, such as making recycled cards and flowers, the plant-able paper, pine needle bags, potpourri, and the hanging oranges that smell good.
Tags: fundraising, Punta Mona
04/13/2009 18:35 Filed in:
green people | LucyWhen GKT started to think about fundraising, my Mom sent out a bunch of emails to local business around the greater Keene area, in hopes that they would consider supporting our club. Megan at Hannah Grimes (the local artisan shop on Main St. in Keene) emailed saying she and the store would love to host a fundraiser. So we met with her and worked out when the fundraiser would be and what products we should sell. Green Keene Teens ended making Woolly Eggs, bunnies, and baskets for the event, Saturday the 4th of April. We also sold our homemade laundry soap, Greenciles, and baked goods.
Before the sale, Megan and Jennifer from Hannah Grimes met with Laura, Alishia, and me, to talk about writing up a press release that would go in their newsletter and maybe even the paper informing the readers about the club and the sale. Laura and Alishia wrote a really great press release. And the day of the sale came fast.
The sale started at about 11:30 on that Saturday morning. The team was prepared for the rainy weather, setting up with a table under an umbrella. The covered table was greatly appreciated when it started to pour! But the girls stayed positive about selling, and I believe we sold at least $100 worth of goods. It ended up being a good day as the remaining members snuggled together as we tried to get rid of our cookies.
For the remainder of the days leading up to Easter, Woolly Eggs, bunnies and baskets were sold at the store. I’m very glad Hannah Grimes has opened their doors to Green Keene Teens. We appreciate all the support they have given us thus far! Please visit the Hannah Grimes website and store for great gift ideas and even GKT products that might be there in the future!
Tags: fundraising
03/15/2009 17:59 Filed in:
cleaners | LucyMina and Olivia came over at 11 a.m. yesterday to get the laundry soap fundraising really started. I was really ready to get the process moving so that we would be able to acquire some money to pay off our T-shirts in the near future. We got started right away. The first step was getting all the sticky labels off the milk jugs we’re re-using.
Mina grated the bars of soap while Olivia and I transported the milk jugs from the barn into the kitchen and peeled them. It took us a couple trips for us to get all the jugs from the barn. But we had managed to scrape up 29 milk jugs from our friends, family, and the other members of GKT.
While we were making the trips back and forth to the barn, my Mom and Dad were heating water on the stove to bring it to a boil. At the same time I was washing the jugs to make sure that there wasn’t any milk scum inside. After the water had boiled they turned each burner off and mixed the ingredients together in the water. Then we added all the liquids together into a 5 gallon bucket and stirred them gently. Making sure not to make too many bubbles.
It really helps to mix the ingredients in their own pots of hot water, and then mix them together in the big bucket after they’re completely dissolved. We’ve been using this laundry soap for a couple of months. When we made it before, we added the soap, washing soda and borax together in one pot of hot water. This earlier batch worked just fine, but it was much clumpier than the soap we made yesterday. If you’re making it yourself, keep this in mind.
After we had finished making one batch we would fill the jugs full and place them on the dining room table to be labeled. Once we had finished filling the 29 jugs, Mina, Olivia and I sat down and started attaching the logos and information to the jugs, while the parents started to clean up the kitchen. This was the hardest part of the whole process because the labels and the contact paper didn’t stick well to the milk bottle. We ended up putting the contact paper all the way around the bottle so the labels would not get wet and they wouldn’t fall off.
In all it took 5 people about 4 hours to create 29 gallons of laundry soap. Today Emily and Laura went out with Mom and sold 10 jugs! Some people asked how it works on clothes, so it was a good thing we’ve been using it. We made extra jugs for each of the GKT members, so they can try it themselves. It cleans well, and the borax and washing soda are both whitening agents. Some people use borax with their regular detergent, instead of bleach. If you have a really dirty load, use a little more (just like you would with regular detergent).
Tags: make-your-own, rethink, cleaners, fundraising
03/10/2009 17:13 Filed in:
meetings | LucyAt second GKT meeting everyone was a lot more comfortable with getting her voice heard. It was a little hectic, but we got some good ideas throughout the hour. Here is a brief summary of what we did.
Volunteering: We are currently getting ready to volunteer at Stonewall Farm. I handed out the volunteer packets to the members. We also talked about trying to volunteer and the Recycling Center. One of the men there offered to get us involved with a Green Up Keene Day. We will have more info about that soon.
Punta Mona: Briefly we went over the trip to Costa Rica that is planned for next February.
Fundraising: We planned when some of the members could make it over to my house to make laundry detergent. Mina, and Olivia helped me make 29 jugs of detergent yesterday. And today Emily and Laura went out and sold ten jugs and got donations. At the meeting we also talked about other potential fundraising ideas.
Logo/T-shirts: Everyone was pretty excited to make Brea’s logo our club’s official sign. Mom recreated the idea in Photoshop, in time to send it to the t-shirt people. It was great to get that planned out. Recently I have been in the process of getting Gemini Screen Printing to make our shirts. Because you know, buying locally is the best!
Earth Day: There were some ideas for doing some kind of event for Earth Day, but we decided against it because we have too many things to do right now. With getting the club started and yourselves well know. Big events will have to come in time.
Green Magazine: Laura had the idea of making a Green Magazine after the club got more settled. We decided if we pursue this idea, that we will have four issues a year corresponding with the seasons.
Bank Account: After we get our Non-profit Certificate we will be getting a bank account at one of the banks in town, so we can keep our money in perfect order. Laura and Katelyn are going to collaborating together to get an account.
Blog Ideas: I encourage everyone to try to write a blog entry or two. I provided them with ideas and prompts of what they could write about. Soon we will have more content on the site!
Tags: logo, fundraising, volunteering, Punta Mona, Earth Day
02/21/2009 14:25 Filed in:
meetings | LucyMeeting #1
I was curious to see who would show up at my first meeting of Green Keene Teens on Thursday Feb. 19th. I was overjoyed at how many people came and were enthusiastic about the club. We had an amazing meeting! When it was over and everyone was leaving Olivia said, “No offense, but I didn’t think it was going to be this fun!” It made me smile to see she was excited about what we’d been talking about. I was also very pleased at the energized response I got from everyone at the meeting. When I got home I already had emails with more ideas for fundraising and a blog waiting for me to read! I was impressed at the swiftness of my friends who really wanted to get things rolling.
If you happen to miss any meetings or are just wondering what we are talking about and planning check back here to see what we’ve done. I will be putting up a blog each time we have a meeting with the major things we have gone over and talked about.
First I explained why I had made Green Keene Teens. I wasn’t very happy with the Sierra Club at school because not everyone in the club would show up to every meeting because of other commitments or they just weren’t excited about what we were doing. We weren’t really doing anything interesting. And I wasn’t satisfied with it. I wanted something more. I created GKT so I could actually make a difference in the community. I wanted to bring bright, intelligent teens together who all were committed to saving the earth.
To become a member of Green Keene Teens, you have to do some volunteering. Anyone can come to meetings, but to be truly involved you need to become a member. Volunteering will make us seem more like an established club that will become well known and liked in the community. Plus it’s just a nice thing to do. We have already been in contact with Stone Wall Farm to try and arrange volunteering. I explained that you don’t only have to be caring for the animals, you can help with gardens, work on projects and much more. I also emailed the Humane Society because my mom had mentioned that they needed someone to sort their recyclables. They haven’t gotten back to me yet about it. I told the members I would let them know when I heard something. We are also going to be making T-shirts for the club so we are easily identifiable when we are out and about. This will help promote the club and let people know who we are.
Most every club at our high school has some kind of club trip. We will have a club trip to Punta Mona, a sustainable living community on an island off of Costa Rica. We are going to fundraise all of the money to cover the expenses, so stay tuned to see what cool ideas we come up with. Check out Punta Mona’s website to see more information. Or see their Youtube video here.
In order to make all the money to go on the trip, GKT will be fundraising like crazy. We have come up with a few ideas already like: selling home-made, earth-friendly laundry detergent, felted soap bars, beeswax candles, drawings and paintings of nature scenes, recycled and earth-friendly school supplies, having car washes, healthy/organic bake sales, and much more!
I explained that I had created this blog and wanted everyone to try to contribute to it. This helps make it clear that Green Keene Teens are excited and ready to talk about the environment to anyone. We aren’t the typical ‘teenagers’ who don’t care about anything. We are ready to show people what we do and lead by example. Giving ourselves and the community tips on how to become a little ‘greener’ everyday.
Like any other organization we will need to have a logo to represent us. I challenged the creative energy in the club to think up ideas for our logo. Once we have come up with our logo it will be on this website, our T-shirts, and the things we make.
Tags: logo, fundraising, volunteering, Punta Mona
