Back in the day, I was a community organizer with Citizens for a Better Environment. I knocked on nearly eighty doors each night and spoke with about fifty people per night. I always had five or ten "raps" that I would share with receptive folks. Those who didn't want to listen only heard one or two. Much to the chagrin of my bosses, I would err on the side of education over fund-raising, but for my part, I spoke to over 100,000 awesome people in my time there. I also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the organization which paid researchers to study ecological issues across the Midwest as well as supporting lawyers to represent the people of Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota in their battles with industry over how clean they had to be. Most people were willing to hear what was being done to protect the environment on their behalf. Today, little has changed except for the political climate, the loss of groups like Citizens for a Better Environment and the desperation that has been created by the corporate sell out of our nation and subsequent bail out of so many massive corporations. Even though we are constantly told that America is more divided than ever, virtually everyone agrees that the corporate welfare that has become synonymous with the Rethuglican Party and the massive theft of wealth from the pockets of "average folks" by big banks, the military and cutbacks of environmental protections is the real problem with our country. Monsanto owning the entire soy bean crop because of genetic engineering that has leaked into other people's bean fields is criminal, not protected behavior in the America we were taught to love. My car, a 1999 model has gotten over fifty miles per gallon routinely since then and continues to save fuel as it sits in the driveway far more often today than it did when I bought it. I am much more frequently on my bike or walking, tilling the soil I have built over the past ten years, or planting native trees across the landscape while traveling by bike or canoe.
When I was young, I tried to "make friends" with less than five hundred people each month. Perhaps less than ten percent of that number gave enough money to join in a membership, but nearly half gave something to the cause. More than half of the doors that I knocked upon were sure to be in the midst of something, just not interested or unhappy to be disturbed by any "do-gooder" no matter what they might have said. In fact the twenty or so folks I met and talked to each night who were truly receptive could share what they learned from me with others, we made sure of that by leaving information that was appropriate for them. Some got fact sheets on recycling, or household hazardous waste and how to avoid it. Others got brochures about composting or how to dispose of waste oil appropriately. Chances were, if you had a specific issue that you were concerned about, I had a fact sheet to help educate you about that issue. making good decisions gets much easier when you have the right information at your disposal. Integrated pest management, no problem waste reduction strategies, that too. What later became transition town stuff or sustainability we used to call living better on less.
Today, the internet allows us to tailor a message to a world audience. Many of the friends I make today are from overseas, but the messages are often the same, the raps of two decades ago have just morphed and merged into new words for many of the same things we talked about back then. I had to spend five hours each night, during the eighties, discussing a very limited series of issues, I was able to tailor groundwater issues to communities situated each on their own well, or help educate folks just as the recycling programs in their area were coming online, but today, people can more or less pick and choose what issues they want to read about and instead of having to be face to face with a community organizer who was only out for about five hours each night, talking to folks, I can do this work in just an hour or three twice a week or so. I never have to knock on a door at an inappropriate moment and folks who don't know enough to make sense of these issues, or just don't care can continue to muddle about without looking at what I have to say.
The difficulty in the current system is that it has taken me nearly thirty months to get up to 2000 views. What I was able to accomplish in just four months has taken nearly two and a half years! Granted, the contacts and context that we share here is more detail oriented, in some ways more intimate, and relieved from the time consuming part of the former community organizer's job of fund raising. Making ends meet without fund raising is an ever more untenable position to be in. Even though I take great pains to hold my tongue on matters of my own personal finances, trying to plant large numbers of trees on less money each year than I used to raise in a week has stressed the limits of possibility. Even though we struggle to make a difference, a difference is being made by sheer will and strength of character amongst those who come to plant-ins with us. If my writing has value, let my know, donate through Paypal, our account number there is also our e-mail address: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com if you prefer to send checks via snail mail, our offices are 1445 Porlier street, Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301-3334 USA. I want to continue to share this site as well as Permaculture, ECO-Ethics, Trees on wordpress, but without funding, I am forever in an energy vortex that draws away vitality instead of amassing more power for the coming changes that are on the horizon.
We are always searching for partners in the building of our dream. On the horizon are several properties that can serve as a Northern Base of Operations. we have funded the retrofit of several old buildings that now sip energy and provide healthier and more liveable space, yet the rewards that are most profound are for the watersheds that we have planted, the ecotones that have come about because of our continuing tree planting efforts and the education that we have provided the hundreds of guests who have come with us to our events. In addition to expanding our base, we are ready to redouble our efforts to bring people to experience our tours, become guests in and way points along our paths to abundance. During the course of the next year or so, I am going to be working on several fronts to share my experiences with Citizens for a Better Environment and things I learned from that important part of my life as well as finalizing my book about the 1987 Bicycle Tour Around the five Great Lakes. If you are interested in a collection of stories that I am putting together, please let me know. I'm not sure how to market such works, but I do know that those who are lucky enough to hear them always say that they should be available to a wider audience.
I would like to find a way to let the person who becomes my two thousandth reader to know how much I appreciate their interest in these things, perhaps offer them a free overnight tour with us. Instead, i will just say that someone accessing the blog this second half of February 2012,will surely put me over two-thousand views. Thank-you and please invite your friends and family to explore the ideas that I write about, get to know me and to take the time to engineer their own sustainable life way.
When I was young, I tried to "make friends" with less than five hundred people each month. Perhaps less than ten percent of that number gave enough money to join in a membership, but nearly half gave something to the cause. More than half of the doors that I knocked upon were sure to be in the midst of something, just not interested or unhappy to be disturbed by any "do-gooder" no matter what they might have said. In fact the twenty or so folks I met and talked to each night who were truly receptive could share what they learned from me with others, we made sure of that by leaving information that was appropriate for them. Some got fact sheets on recycling, or household hazardous waste and how to avoid it. Others got brochures about composting or how to dispose of waste oil appropriately. Chances were, if you had a specific issue that you were concerned about, I had a fact sheet to help educate you about that issue. making good decisions gets much easier when you have the right information at your disposal. Integrated pest management, no problem waste reduction strategies, that too. What later became transition town stuff or sustainability we used to call living better on less.
Today, the internet allows us to tailor a message to a world audience. Many of the friends I make today are from overseas, but the messages are often the same, the raps of two decades ago have just morphed and merged into new words for many of the same things we talked about back then. I had to spend five hours each night, during the eighties, discussing a very limited series of issues, I was able to tailor groundwater issues to communities situated each on their own well, or help educate folks just as the recycling programs in their area were coming online, but today, people can more or less pick and choose what issues they want to read about and instead of having to be face to face with a community organizer who was only out for about five hours each night, talking to folks, I can do this work in just an hour or three twice a week or so. I never have to knock on a door at an inappropriate moment and folks who don't know enough to make sense of these issues, or just don't care can continue to muddle about without looking at what I have to say.
The difficulty in the current system is that it has taken me nearly thirty months to get up to 2000 views. What I was able to accomplish in just four months has taken nearly two and a half years! Granted, the contacts and context that we share here is more detail oriented, in some ways more intimate, and relieved from the time consuming part of the former community organizer's job of fund raising. Making ends meet without fund raising is an ever more untenable position to be in. Even though I take great pains to hold my tongue on matters of my own personal finances, trying to plant large numbers of trees on less money each year than I used to raise in a week has stressed the limits of possibility. Even though we struggle to make a difference, a difference is being made by sheer will and strength of character amongst those who come to plant-ins with us. If my writing has value, let my know, donate through Paypal, our account number there is also our e-mail address: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com if you prefer to send checks via snail mail, our offices are 1445 Porlier street, Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301-3334 USA. I want to continue to share this site as well as Permaculture, ECO-Ethics, Trees on wordpress, but without funding, I am forever in an energy vortex that draws away vitality instead of amassing more power for the coming changes that are on the horizon.
We are always searching for partners in the building of our dream. On the horizon are several properties that can serve as a Northern Base of Operations. we have funded the retrofit of several old buildings that now sip energy and provide healthier and more liveable space, yet the rewards that are most profound are for the watersheds that we have planted, the ecotones that have come about because of our continuing tree planting efforts and the education that we have provided the hundreds of guests who have come with us to our events. In addition to expanding our base, we are ready to redouble our efforts to bring people to experience our tours, become guests in and way points along our paths to abundance. During the course of the next year or so, I am going to be working on several fronts to share my experiences with Citizens for a Better Environment and things I learned from that important part of my life as well as finalizing my book about the 1987 Bicycle Tour Around the five Great Lakes. If you are interested in a collection of stories that I am putting together, please let me know. I'm not sure how to market such works, but I do know that those who are lucky enough to hear them always say that they should be available to a wider audience.
I would like to find a way to let the person who becomes my two thousandth reader to know how much I appreciate their interest in these things, perhaps offer them a free overnight tour with us. Instead, i will just say that someone accessing the blog this second half of February 2012,will surely put me over two-thousand views. Thank-you and please invite your friends and family to explore the ideas that I write about, get to know me and to take the time to engineer their own sustainable life way.
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