Just a friendly reminder that Earth Hour this year is March 27th at 8:30pm. Since this is a weekend, schools are encouraged to participate the day before on March 26th.

For the official website, check out Earth Hour’s website at www.myearthhour.org/

Great idea. Amazing how a good one can spread!

Earth Day (in partnership with Toyota) has launched a new scholarship program for 20 Canadian high school students. According to the website “The Toyota Earth Day Scholarship Program encourages and rewards graduating Canadian high school students who have distinguished themselves through environmental community service, extracurricular and volunteer activities, and academic excellence.” Its great to see companies giving back although sometimes it pains us when programs like these are often sponsored by car and oil companies. Definitely check it out regardless.

Cheers,

Corey

This posting is meant to outline the benefits of a litter-less or waste free lunch for everyone involved.

What is a litter-less lunch? According to EcoSchools it is a lunch that “contains no throwaway packaging or food leftovers. As a first prioriy, lunches are packed in servings that will be completely eaten. To avoid any packaging, all food and drinks are packed in reusable containers within a reusable lunch bag or box. All containers are resealable, so that leftover food and drink that is not eaten can be consumed (or composted) later.”

Schools across the United States and Canada are starting their own litter-less lunches and Litter-less Lunch Fundraisers and for good reason:

Schools

• Students are taught a very simple and effective means of implementing the 3 R’s.
• Simplifies the clean-up time needed during lunch hours.
• Are able to proudly quantify the waste they successfully averted.
• Help to raise funds that can be used to help fund a green team, start a school garden and composting system or for other great uses.

School Boards

• Reduce waste disposal fees. Up to 75% of school waste comes from the lunch room.
• Alleviate the work load of custodians board-wide.

Parents

• Due to investments in products such as reusable containers and purchasing food in bulk rather than single serving sizes, families quickly begin to see the savings.
• Are provided with affordable, non-toxic products to help make packing a litter-less lunch easy.

Environment

• It goes without saying that by reducing, reusing and recycling, our environment stand to benefit.

We hope that you will consider litter-less lunches and Koru Fundraising as a way to celebrate Earth Day on April 22 this year.

All the best,

Corey

Browsing the web, today we found a great site for helping green schools in Ontario. Its a program sponsored by Metro, the new grocery store that bought out Dominion and is based in Quebec. The program is donating $1,000 to 1,000 local schools who show how they are going green and purportedly have 297 schools on record.

Check out their link at http://www.greenapplegrants.ca/home.en.html. It is so vital that children understand their relation to the earth. Having an easy way to help launch a green team is so helpful. Metro should be commended for their efforts.