Green Cotton

Food, fashion and fun were all on the agenda at last week’s Boston GreenFest, held from August 19-21. Featuring eco-minded exhibitors from all over New England, the family-friendly event took over Boston’s City Hall Plaza. Organic food vendors, green design companies, and plenty of local businesses were on hand to both showcase their wares and generate eco-awareness.

The event kicked off on Thursday morning with a green business breakfast and green jobs forum (featuring former Governor Michael Dukakis). Other highlights included 50/50 raffle (wherein the winner received half the winnings while the other half went to the Foundation for a Green Future, Inc.) and continuous performances held on the City Hall Plaza’s main stage. The concerts, dance performances, stunt work, fashion shows, yoga and workout bootcamp dominated the stage all weekend long. Thursday also featured the One Gallon Challenge, a “race” to see how far the latest fuel-efficient, eco-friendly cars could travel with one gallon of gas… from 110 miles away in Northampton, MA.

Friday’s highlights included the Eco-Runway, featuring Nancy’s Gone Green! Eco Boutique of Framingham, MA. Festival goers could also enjoy another night of performances and shop in the Eco Bazaar. They could also sample organic “world cuisine” in the Eco Cafe, including North Indian dishes from Mela Restaurant, Korean cuisine from Choi Food, Mexican treats from Cha-Cha-Cha, and coffee from Dean’s Bean, a fair-trade, organic company and a Green Cotton favorite! Saturday saw still more exhibitors, concerts and another staging of the Eco-Runway.

New Englanders are fortunate to be able to enjoy large green festivals like this, and the Boston GreenFest is sandwiched between two other major eco-conscious events: April’s Down2Earth and October’s Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. Plenty of healthy, organic food, along with fashion designers and green companies, will descend on VegFest next month, so if you missed GreenFest, be sure to check it out!

Green Cotton was happy to receive a gift from a local eco-friendly vendor that will be reviewed (and raved over!) here on this blog… stay tuned later this week to find out what it is!

Images from: http://www.bostongreenfest.org/index1.html

http://www.bostongreenfest.org/onegalchal.html

http://www.bostongreenfest.org/fashiontent.html

Photosource: http://images.google.com

Cameron Diaz has kept herself busy this month trailing along a train of interviewers from various amazingly fashionable magazines to get the word out on the environment. While the interview we recently reviewed in VOGUE focused mostly on the eco-fashions Diaz wore in her editorial shots, and only quickly mentioned her environmental campaign, Marie Claire dove into her work and gave us a better idea of what exactly Diaz is up to.

Diaz is currently traveling across the country with a small entourage of about twenty cameramen and other crew with a goal of seeing how much the general American person knows about the troubles of our environment in order to raise general awareness.

Unveiling Diaz’s inspiration to talk about the environment, she shares her experience as a child living in a neighborhood in Long Beach, CA, that was not only near a large freeway, but also toxic waste refinery, which would dump waste at the end of her block. “Childhood” also meant suffering from asthma, and an ongoing burning, itchy sensation in her eyes and throat. Coming from this personal experience of knowing what it would be like everywhere if we don’t start treating the environment with more respect, Cameron Diaz speaks with an authenticity that deepens her California starlet persona.

So she has been traveling all over the United States to ask the average American math teacher, high-school girls, and soccer moms questions like, “Do you know where your food, your water come from? Do you worry about the environment?” And always wraps up with the same questions, “What would it take for you to do something about the environment?”

To which most people are very touched, but do not know how to respond. Diaz has met with a general feeling of hopelessness. People do care but do not seem to think anything they can do personally will help the environment as a whole. They feel any changes they make would not stop global warming or deforestation.

While no one person can do any one of these things alone, if we all ban together and do everything we can to save the environment, this will make a huge difference. We can all add up!

So what made Diaz finally campaign after years of silence in this area? She realized that the planet did not have a publicist to speak for her. Diaz decided to use her well-known clout and popularity to promote support for the environment. Just starting the discussion is enough to get people thinking about their actions and the repercussions of their actions.

This new environmental role she has decided to take on can only make us love her more. You go Cameron! The environment needs as many publicists as it can get.

Photosource: Marieclaire.com

Find out about Cameron Diaz’s favorite sustainability websites here.

By: Julia Rea

Planet Aid is not exactly the “charity” that we previously thought. In fact, we would like to update our earlier post with the following new information to give you a more well-rounded perspective on this organization. Our sincere apologize to our readers for this oversight, as we were initially excited by the premise and mission of the group. A special thank you to our readership, especially Genna, for bringing these new insights to our attention.

Photosource: www.thebollard.com

First, Planet Aid seems to have a controversial record as a charitable organization, in fact, the Better Business Bureau has refused them as a ‘charity’. One of the ways in which Planet Aid has failed to be a ‘charity’ is the amount of money produced by donated clothing that is put back into development programs. The American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) gave them an “F” in their December 2006 “Watchdog Report” after finding that Planet Aid only spent just 23 percent of total revenue on programs for the poor. The AIP requires non-profit charitable organizations to spend at least 60 percent of revenue on these programs. The best rated organizations spend up to 75 % of revenue on charitable programs.

Planet Aid also has tenuous connections with the Danish cult-like organization called Tvid. Their founder also started Planet Aid’s partner organization, Humana People-to-People.

Photosouce: www.thebollard.com

Tvid’s Founder, Morgens Amdi Peterson, originated as an alternative school teacher who had received funding from the Danish government to support his school, and then had that funding recinded when the school was found to have ‘cultlike’ qualities.

After some controversies arose surrounding his school, Peterson went underground for two decades! During his decades underground, Danish and American prosecutors believe he “masterminded a global expansion of Tvind that included both non-profits like Planet Aid and for-profit enterprises that now collectively number around 150, with hundreds of millions of dollars in total assets.” Prosecutors allege that funds raised from these organizations are transferred between Tvind’s non-profit and for-profit entities, which share many of the same members and corporate officers.

Peterson was arrested in Los Angeles in 2oo2  and extradited to Denmark where he and other top Tvid officials were to stand trail for charges of tax evasion (11 million) and embezzelment (9 million). However, Peterson and four other Tvid leaders fled Denmark before they were served court papers and are still at-large. It was discovered at this time that Peterson had been living in a multi-million dollar pad on an island off the coast of Florida with a $5 million dollar yacht, the “Butterfly McQueen.”

Butterfly McQueen Yacht

Photosource: www.yachtdevelopments.com

Of course Planet Aid has denied any funny business. We cannot know for sure how involved Planet Aid is in all this, or if funds are being used to support these men or Peterson’s new $5 million dollar yacht, but we do know that Planet Aid is not recognized as a charitable organization by any of the most respected watchdog organizations in the United States or the world, and that just the thought of someone using the needs of poor children in Africa as a front to get rich is repulsive.

So where does this leave us? Well, our opinion is to steer clear of this organization and not to donate a darn thing, but of course we leave it up to you. At the same time, we continue to strongly encourage recycling all your old clothing or let someone else enjoy it. So for now, lets stick to Goodwill and Salvation Army, as well as your local clothing swap. Tell us about your favorite clothing donation option. We want to hear from you.

By: Julia Rea