Supporting Your Local Community

This weekend is Comfest in Columbus (www.comfest.com), which got me thinking about communities and how we support them. Comfest started in 1972 and continues to be a completely volunteer-driven festival in Goodale Park. It is a great opportunity to think about our local communities and the choices we make every day in them. I have the honor of living in Victorian Village, which is a great neighborhood that sits between Ohio State and Downtown Columbus and it means that we can walk or bike to just about anything. It also borders the Short North, which is full of shops, restaurants and resources, many of which I have not even tried yet. There is so much talk about buying local and supporting small businesses that I started wondering - shouldn't we support robust community activity and business in our neighborhoods, even if they are not all small businesses? When businesses come into communities, they encourage growth and vibrant neighborhoods and that includes businesses that may not be small or independent. I think that if we are really thinking local, we should support those businesses that are making our local neighborhoods vibrant, even if some of them are corporations or big businesses. Next time you think about grocery shopping or picking up something for home, ask yourself how far from home do I have to go?

Biking Around Ohio

It was a good weekend - Pride in Columbus was fun, the weather was gorgeous and Goodale park was full of activity. Wtih all the activity on Friday and Saturday, I was not sure how much energy I would have for our planned bike ride on Sunday but I was committed to going. I was talking to one of my friends about the biking adventures we have been planning around Ohio and they thought it was ironic that we were driving to go on a bike ride, but we want to be able to check out trails around the state and I am not up for 100-mile rides, yet. So, we set off Sunday to the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway, starting in Nelsonville and ending up in Athens. There are four of us who ride and this week we figured out how to fit one bike in the trunk and the other three on the bike rack so we could take one car, instead of two, yea for the environment!

The trail was great - relatively flat along the railbed and partially shaded so the sun was not beating down on us the whole time. Here is what I am learning about myself through these activities though: the things that I enjoy the most are things that are good for me and good for the environment. Getting me off the couch, turning off the computer and the T.V. and riding for 3 hours is fun and the exercise benefits are just a side benefit, not the goal. So, we are planning our next ride, hopefully to happen sooner rather than later, and looking forward to adventures throughout the state - who knew Ohio had such great biking trails? (Actually, I am certain many people knew, I was just not one of them until now!) Next time you have an hour or two, think about what you want to do with your day - spend it doing what you always do, or trying a new adventure that might actually turn out to be something you want to do again?

In case you are in Ohio and interested in the biking trails around the state, check out the link below:

http://www.ohiobikeways.net/

Rediscovering old favorites

After my last post, I began thinking about all the behaviors that could be incorporated into my daily life and it made me start to remember all those "sustainable" things I used to do, before anyone was even using the word sustainable. I am an avid reader, have been since I was a little girl and I remember how every summer I would pester my mom to get us over to the library so that I could sign up for the summer reading program and win prizes that probably included things like a free ice cream cone from McDonald's. While the prize was fun to get, the real motivation for me was in reading books. How many books could I read? Would I find a new favorite in the pile of stories I was about to delve into? And, while I read all throughout the year, there was something unique and special about the summers and those reading clubs. Somewhere along the way, I grew up, got a job, had money and found the bookstore so much easier and more convenient than the library. I grew my collection of good (and a lot of bad!) books and periodically would gather up those that were collecting dust and drop them off at Goodwill, getting my donations receipt for tax purposes. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, I was in need of something to read and headed to the bookstore to grab a few books. Now, I love the bookstore, I love perusing new, undiscovered authors and could spend hours walking the aisles, exploring new books and ideas. Bouncing from fiction to cooking and over to travel was all part of the experience and one that I never liked to miss out on - I am not a run in, pick up a book and check out kind of bookstore girl!

But I started thinking - why did I stop using the library? When did I convince myself that in order to read, it had to be with a new book from the bookstore? So, I went to the library and got myself a library card, something I have not had in about 15 years. I had to look up where the library was (just a short walk from my house actually) and figure out when it was open (longer than I expected) and I went and got my library card. And, you know what I found? I found a great resource that I have not been taking advantage of. The library is way more convenient than I ever realized, with online reservation of books, telling me exactly where I am on a wait list and the ability to pick up the book at my branch of choice. And the activity in the library - wow, I felt like I was the only one who had forgotten about the library when I walked in and saw all the people there! It was as though time had transported me back and I remembered that feeling of going to the library and getting my book stamped with the recognitition for the books I read and it made me realize that, sustainable practices aside, I liked the feeling of going back to something that had been the place of so many happy memories for me. And, next time I get the urge to spend hours exploring books, I have my library card in hand to do just that.

I am never going to be a Kindle kind of girl - while I can appreciate all the arguments for being able to carry 500 books with me and the convenience of zoom in to make the print larger, I would miss the feel of a book in my hands, the smell of the pages and the familiar sound of those pages turning as I get lost in the stories. But I also don't know if buying a book every time I want to read is the best way either so it's back to my childhood and back to the library. I am even thinking about starting my own summer reading program - maybe my prize will be a bookstore purchase but more than likely, it will be an ice cream cone!

What Does Green Mean?

I was in Tampa, FL last week, attending a conference on sustainability and stayed at a hotel that was a proud member of the "Florida Green Lodging Program". I wondered what that meant and started noticing what the hotel was doing, or not doing, to achieve this distinction. As I started looking around, I realized that being green is the newest label in a long line of labeling the new, trendy practices. and it is often just that, a label. So, I began to think - if you are really going to be green, wouldn't you...and came up with a tick list of items for the hotel (at least for this blog entry!) and the list grew as I began to pay attention everywhere, hence the blog and not just one random post somewhere!

So, if you are really going to be green, wouldn't you... is an idea about how to have the conversation, moving the needle past a label and toward real action and real change. It's also about remembering the role that each person plays in this movement toward sustainable practices. I believe that the actions of individuals are far more powerful and impactful than any label or mandate, sometimes we just need to be reminded of it!

As I prepared my breakfast at the hotel, on styrofoam plates and bowls, I jotted down my observations and began my idea for a blog. The five things that jumped out at me about hotels as I looked around: no recycling, not for paper, plastic, cans or any other materials; newspapers at every door, including many that had still gone unclaimed by 2:00 in the afternoon; breakfast served with all styrofoam and disposables; no individual temperature controls and single-switch light controls in the room. While some of these things are out of an individual's control, there are some things that can impact your personal footprint at a hotel - do you leave the TV on for background noise? Do you leave computers and/or eletronics powered on when not in use? Do you bring your at-home behaviors on the road? You know the ones I am talking about - things like turning the water off while you brush your teeth and shutting off the lights when you leave the room. While the hotel's efforts can be, and really should be, improved, our actions can make an impact, regardless of the hotel's practices so don't forget the importance of your own behavior!

The next time you stay at a hotel, think about some of these facts: for all the advertising about reusing your towels, research shows that the actual number of people who do for multi-night stays is less than 30%; almost 70% of hotel guests would use a recycling bin if it was in their room and people are more likely to participate in green practices if they know their fellow hotel guests are doing the same. Now, the question is what will you do to make an impact?