Everyone knows someone who deserves an award. Well, The Daily Green is giving you a chance to recognize your hero. We’re calling for nominations for local heroes, one of whom will win a Heart of Green Award at a ceremony in April in New York City!
The Heart of Green Awards honor individuals, companies, and organizations who have helped green go mainstream. In 2009, The Daily Green hosted its first annual Heart of Green Awards ceremony, sponsored by eBay, at the LEED-Gold certified Heart Tower in New York City.
The 2009 awards winners included actresses and advocates Alicia Silverstone and Gloria Reuben, home garden evangelist Roger Doiron, children’s health advocate Deirdre Imus, model and sustainable fashion advocate Summer Rayne Oakes, TV personality Maria Menounos, electronics recycling business owner Jennifer Canty, New York City, and the Planet Green TV network.
In addition to the awards for celebrities and heavyweights in the environmental movement, one award is given to a local hero nominated by The Daily Green’s audience. In 2009, we received nominations that told us 40 inspiring stories about real people making a real difference.
It’s your turn again. Who in your community deserves to be recognized? Is it the organizer of a local farmers’ market … or the local farmer herself? Maybe it’s the shopkeeper who refuses to sell suspect plastics … or the construction worker who donated his time to weatherize neighborhood homes. Is it the mayor who installed solar power panels on the town hall … or the watchdog who held the mayor accountable for a bad decision?
Tell us, and the rest of The Daily Green audience, why your nominee deserves to be recognized with a Heart of Green Award. We’ll recognize many of the nominees by publishing your accounts of their good deeds on The Daily Green, and the winner will receive his or her award at the Heart of Green Awards ceremony, April 20, in New York City.
About Greg Perry, 2009’s Local Hero
The 2009 Heart of Green Local Hero is Greg Perry, an Ohio school teacher who surmounted great obstacles to create “the Green Dream,” the state’s largest green products expo.
The extraordinary class project raised $150,000 in 2008, and exceeded that mark in 2009 — all to create the Ultimate Green Classroom, a model classroom completely refurbished with sustainable, nontoxic materials, powered by the sun, and open to the school and to the community. And he did it all while battling cancer.
Adamant that the Green Dream live on, he taught his class by Skype and made a courageous appearance at The Daily Green’s Heart of Green Awards that brought the audience to tears (watch the video below).
(He’s doing great by the way, and is back leading his class.)
2009 nominees
The nominations for the 2009 Local Hero award included many worthy candidates. We celebrated dozens of nominees in this feature: 40 Inspiring Stories About Real People Making a Real Difference.
2010 nominees
Here’s a look at a few of the exceptional nominees that have already been suggested. Take a look then nominate your local hero!
2010 Local Hero nominees: Real people making a real difference
Katie Spotz, founder of the Blue Planet Run
We often doubt the power of one person, especially when it comes to tackling a global challenge like clean water. It is with the highest admiration that my peers and I nominate Miss Katie Spotz for the 2010 Heart of Green Local Hero.
As a guest speaker in our Effective Leadership Academy, Katie came into our marketing class to speak about her upcoming extreme adventure and its cause. On New Year’s Day 2010, she began her challenge of being the youngest (age 22) and first American to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat solo. Her goal is to raise enough funds to secure fresh water for at least 1,000 people in developing nations.
Although Katie is from a small town in Ohio, much like my classmates and me, she has committed her life to helping raise awareness, using her athletic abilities, for global issues. But when it comes to endurance athletics, Spotz seems to find her stride. She has run numerous marathons, ultramarathons, and even cycled across the United States. Motivated and consumed by her cause of fresh water for all, Spotz views her athletic endeavors as acts of meditation. Believing the challenge to be as much a mental one as a physical one.
Katie shoved off the coast of Africa in her one-woman rowboat, prepared to cruise 2,500 miles over nearly 100 days alone at sea, hoping to set shore in Guyana in South America later this spring. Although the rowing adventure is amazing, what our class found most compelling is Katie’s vision, her passion, and her commitment to making a difference.
After hearing her speak and watching her daily progress across the Atlantic, we definitely look at ourselves and our company’s goals differently. We’ve also committed proceeds from our 2010 Green Dream Showcase to support Katie Spotz and her charity, the Blue Planet Run.
Nominated by Hillary Sadler, student CEO of the Green Dream, Beachwood, Ohio
Billiam van Roestenberg, farmer at Liberty View Farm
Billiam van Roestenberg’s “rent a chicken” and “lease and apple tree” programs may be as unique and creative as he is! A transplanted NYC person, Billiam preaches the values of sustainable agriculture to local customers of his Liberty View Farm and also to his many contacts in New York City.
My take on Billiam’s mission: Make local agriculture accessible and sensible to customers, and rewarding to both the farmer and their customers. One of Billiam’s slogans that illustrates this is: “Do you know who your farmer is?”
I’ve never met a man with as many ideas about how to change the world as Billiam has! Last year, Billiam won Huffington Post’s “Hottest Farmer” contest. And more recently, the Sundance Channel produced a short featuring Billiam and his farm (it’s embedded on his homepage.)
Nominated by Daniel Clark, Kingston, N.Y.
Robina Suwol, founder of California Safe Schools
A true visionary and champion for children’s rights, Robina Suwol is the Founder & Executive Director of California Safe Schools (CSS), a celebrated children’s environmental health and environmental justice nonprofit coalition of over 50 organizations located in Southern California. CSS is committed to the health and safety of children, staff and community members who reside near school sites.
CSS is internationally recognized for spearheading the most stringent pesticide policy in the nation at Los Angeles Unified School District (2nd largest in the nation). This policy called Integrated Pest Management Policy, uses low risk methods to eliminate pest and weeds.
The policy was the first in the United States to embrace the Precautionary Principle and Parents Right to Know about pesticides used on school campuses. Today, it has become the model for school districts and communities internationally.
On October 6, 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 405 (Montanez) sponsored by California Safe Schools. This law closes a loophole protecting more than 6 million California K-12 public school students and hundreds of thousands of teachers and school employees from exposure to experimental pesticides whose health effects are unknown. Since founding CSS.
An articulate and compelling speaker, Suwol gives frequent presentations on safety to parents, students, school officials & legislators.changing
Nominated by Donna Inglima
Ally Maize, founder of Green Youth Movement
After becoming impassioned towards the eco-system’s plight when researching cars at the tender age of 15, Ally Maize decided it she would take it upon herself to do something good for the environment.
She began slowly by employing reusable grocery bags instead of using plastic, changing her hot water heating system inside her house to tank-less, and adding solar panels on the roof. What followed these personal improvements was nothing short of incredible for a 15-year-old, newly set out to save the world: the creation of the Green Youth Movement (GYM), an organization to educate kids and teens about global warming and pressing environmental issues.
GYM promotes a thoughtful mindset that values the earth and our future in hopes of inspiring awareness and giving a broad and easily applicable understanding of what it means to “live green.”
In the two years since its inception, GYM has made incredible strides in the education and participation of adolescents by making a name for itself among green Los Angeles non-profits. From simple (but important!) plantings to hosting an upcoming eco-friendly fashion show during LA’s Fashion Week to presenting their 2009 “Inspiration Award” to former Vice President Al Gore, GYM is increasingly visible and influential to its target audience.
Ally Maize deserves to be recognized for bringing the green message to LA’s next generation of consuming adults — arguably the most important and yet least reached-out-to demographic. Ally and her GYM “green teens” are looking towards the future when many are stuck only paying attention to the present.
Nominated by Spencer Bernstein
Mary Jo Graham, Environmental Educator
For over 30 years, Mary Jo Graham (pictured far left) has had a fascination with our natural world. An environmental activist and advocate, she is a Naturalist for Earth Spirit Educational Services teacher, educating area students and the general public. She recently graduated with honors from the University at Buffalo with a degree in Environmental Studies. Currently, MJ is researching homesteading and self-sufficiency, applying some of these practices in her daily life.
Mary Jo has also brought much to Buffalo State College’s Winterim program, a series of staff development seminars. She classes on topics such as Earthly Cleaning, Beginning Cheese Making, Make your Own Groceries, as well as bringing in Lords of Nature: Life in a Land of great Predators, a documentary that was attended by over 100 people, a Winterim record.
Earth Spirit is another place where Mary Jo helps provide diverse educational programs to schools, community groups and the public. She is there for most events whether it is a snowshoe hike through the woods or maple sugaring techniques you can always expect to see Mary Jo’s smiling face.
She helps people change the way they think about nature and their role in it good or bad. She is always available and spreads the word not only verbally but by her very lifestyle. You can find her in the spring stirring a pot of maple sap making her own syrup. She is an avid bird enthusiast and someone I am very happy to call friend. No one deserves this honor more than she.
Nominated by Susan M. Jaworski
Julie Naylon, founder of No Wire Hangers
Julie Naylon truly has a heart of green. Since founding her green home-organizing business No Wire Hangers in 2008, she has worked tirelessly to help the people of Los Angeles streamline and green their homes, and even more importantly, to rethink their entire approach to life.
The Los Angeles Organizing Awards rewarded her for her work with “The Green Award for the Most Eco-friendly Organizing Business” in 2009.
Reminding clients and friends alike to buy smarter, repurpose more often, recycle everything (even ex-boyfriends — Julie has put several of hers to work while establishing No Wire Hangers), Naylon is launching a revolution one eco-clothes hanger at a time.
The more she learns, the more she strives to teach others about how our choices impact the planet. She’s devoted herself to spreading the word about how we can, quite literally, save the world by taking easy but crucial steps to keep our unwanted possessions out of landfills and stop the deluge of junk mail to our homes.
Whether she’s touring a local garbage dump in order to see where our stuff really goes, volunteering at local green expos, donating her time to local charities, recycling all matter of found material into stylish home furnishings (which she blogs about at julienaylon.blogspot.com), or teaching workshops in New York City and Los Angeles about living a greater, greener existence, she’s quickly becoming the go-to green girl from coast to coast.
Nominated by Sarah Tomlinson
More from The Daily Green
- More Stories of Real People Making a Real Difference
- Nominate Your Local Hero!
- 2010 Heart of Green Awards: Full Coverage
- Who Won the 2009 Heart of Green Awards?
- Celebrity Photos From the 2009 Heart of Green Awards
Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc