Fundraising With Green In Mind Although school is coming to an end, this is the ideal time to organize school fundraisers for the 2009-2010 school-year.   Think about the first few months of school:  your children come home with the ubiquitous overpriced candles, gift wrap, cookie dough catalogues to raise much needed funds for their schools.  Do you, then, feel obligated to bring these glossy catalogues to your co-workers and neighbors, begging them to buy unnecessary goods that they neither need nor want on your child’s behalf?  There is nothing wrong with trying to raise monies for your child’s school.  With today’s paltry public school budgets, how else can we give to schools without trashing the planet?  How large of a footprint have we left over the years from these school fundraisers?  Start now for the next school year– make an effort to sell products that have an environmental purpose.  Some easy, no-brainer eco-fundraisers are: Box Tops For Education is an uncomplicated way to raise big dollars for your school.  Simply cut out the coupons on hundreds of products. Terracycle helps eliminate waste. Schools can register on the TerraCycle site to become a member of various “brigades.” One such brigade is the Capri Sun & Honest Kids Drink Pouch Brigade.  This allows you to help keep our landfills free from drink pouches (and many other products) and in turn, TerraCycle will “upcycle” these used (and then thoroughly cleaned, of course!) into unique fashion bags, totes and pencil cases.  TerraCycle will donate $.02 for every drink pouch, cookie wrapper, yogurt container to the non-profit organization or school of our choice. Eco-phones  collects electronic waste. They not only accept cell phones, but ink cartridges, laptop/notebook computers, digital cameras, digital picture frames, and iPods. You can download the current pricelist  to see the amazing payouts.  No cost to participate and you are provided with marketing tools. Reuse This Bag  is a great educational site offering to create custom bags to sell for fundraisers.  You can order grocery bags, wine totes, as well as insulated grocery bags that are all made out of recycled polypropylene.  There is a minimum order of 500 bags. Smencils are scented pencils made from rolled sheets of newspaper in lieu of trees.  Their motto says it all: “Saving trees….one pencils at a time.” And now, their freshness containers are made from corn-based biodegradable plastic!! If your school would like to take on a larger green fundraising commitment, one such fundraising company is Greenraising.  You can help your school raise money as well as offer environmental awareness by selling eco-friendly and fairly traded products. Some of the products are Sigg water bottles, lead-free lunch boxes, reusable bags and biodegradable cleaning products.  25% of all website sales and 40% of all catalog sales go directly to your school (or non-profit organization.) Many schools have already started recycling programs, grow vegetable and butterfly gardens, and are conscious of using and consuming less.  Eco-fundraising fits nicely into this agenda. What a fabulous way to support your local school while reinforcing a positive message to both students and parents who are trying to lessen their carbon footprint.  The key is to be mindful of what and how we consume.  Don’t allow your PTA to be stuck in its bad habits! What kinds of changes have you made?  Sign up on Earth Promise and create your own list of promises that will make a difference! Tags: Box Tops, budgets, Capri Sun, carbon footprint, cell phones, change, changes, climate change, conservation, digital cameras, earth, earth promise, earthpromise, eco-friendly, education, energy, environment, environmental, environmental issues, global warming, green, green changes, green future, green living, green practice, green practices, green revolution, green tips, greener economy, grocery bags, Honest Kids, ink cartridges, iPods, laptop computers, mother earth, organic, pencils, phones, PTA, public school, recycling, reuse, reusing, save money, school fundraiers, Sigg, smencils, sustainable economy, Terracycle, waste

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