As I hung up the phone with the Director of Sustainability of a small liberal arts university, I was struck by the number of times that I have heard the same challenge articulated. The challenge – we have no money to work with- is a common one since schools that are fiscally conservative often have a small to non-existent budget to put towards sustainability initiatives which leads their Directors to face what feels like a huge wall.

The seemingly insurmountable needs – resources, manpower, support – feel like they grow larger over time since the Director does what they can, in many cases continuing to identify more and more that needs to be done around the school.  Overwhelming for certain.

I am going to propose a solution, or even better, show you that there is no insurmountable wall in front of you, there is simply a challenge that you have yet to overcome.

In the next few sections we are going to troubleshoot some ways to help move beyond those challenges.

No money?

First figure out whose existing budget the changes you desire falls under.  While you will mainly spend your time researching and graphing out the options, this does not require you to have a budget, it works under an existing one…

No manpower?

Again, looking at existing structures will help with this.  Why do you need an army if one is already exists and is paid for?

No support?

Do you know the cost and benefits to what you are proposing?  I suggest that you merely need to understand the motivations and passions of your higher-ups in order to best present why the most sustainable option is the one to take.  I’m not talking about manipulation, I’m talking about understanding the needs of the person(s) holding the purse strings.

Doing anything alone is more difficult that doing it with others. In fact synergy shows us that when we work together that 1 + 1 can actually equal 3! Remember this and you are already in better shape than when you began your quest.

This festival in celebration of an alum know by some as the stinking rose, avoided by those who seek to kiss their sweetheart, and banned from those on a sattvic diet because of its disruption of meditation practices and invigoration of the central nervous system occurs every October in Orange, Massachussets.

The Garlic and Arts fest is one of my favorite times of the year.  Occurring in the fall right around the time of the garlic harvest and replanting for the following year, this festival is jam packed with local foods, arts, music, handicrafts, and stinky breath.

Why does supporting local businesses at the Garlic fest matter?  Well without the numerous vendors peppered all over the lawn, the garlic and arts festival would not likely happen.  Many come to get maple sugar cotton candy – for which the line is always long – art, locally grown foods to bring home, and handicrafts.

While I was expecting the garlic ice cream to taste like garlic my first bite into the pungent coldness still shocked me.  ‘It tastes like garlic!’ I exclaimed causing my friends around me to crack up. For me, this novelty item was great to try once and certainly left me with the flavor of the event rolling around my tongue.

It is festivals like this that allow for a region to develop and celebrate its own flavor and feel at the end of a successful season.  Not only can fairs like this help people to feel more tied to their community, they give people something to look forward to every year, they also have the potential to increase tourism and local revenue in a way that an amusement park can’t touch because the ownership is local and spread out amongst many beneficiaries.

So if you are ever in Western Massachusetts in October, make it a point to visit Orange for the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival and check out part of what makes us special.

Looking to teach more about sustainability, renewable energy, or another cool hip topic that you just don’t feel you know enough about?  Well first, don’t forget, you don’t have to know everything.  That’s the great thing about allowing students to go out and find the information about what interests them.

But if you are hoping to at least make an introduction to new topics in the classroom, check out your favorite non-profit to see if they provide free curriculum, games or lesson plans.  So many have begun to develop these services, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.  Who better to hear about issues from than the experts?

For ease here are a few examples:

Oxfam Cool Planet for Teachers

Northeast Sustainable Energy Association

This post is also viewable on iTeachToo.com through this link.

A two hour drive from Wote in the Makueni district of Kenya lies the village of Ngomano.  The last 9 miles of the trip to the village center takes a four-wheel drive vehicle and nerves of steel.  Not only are you sharing the single lane road with goats, sheep, cattle and people heading to get water, but what is used as a road is often deeply rutted and washed out.  Hold on to your stomach for this bumpy ride.

Just before you arrive at the village center of Ngomano a small side road to the left takes you a hundred yards to The Clay International School.  This school was developed by PEI Kenya as an innovative way to teach, and in order to create a sustainable community.

I like that PEI Kenya is trying to work themselves out of a job, and the villagers like it too.  While initially skeptical, and who could blame them with the numerous abandoned or partially finished buildings put up by western groups seeking to ‘help’, the community is a shareholder in this process.

Some of the amazing accomplishments that I’ve seen:
- A women-owned cooperative in the village make beautiful traditionally woven baskets for sale locally and internationally
- The village now has access to clean drinking water after a long struggle with drought
- The school grows a variety of crops that are native, provide a balanced diet to the students, and are more resilient for when ‘the rains fail’

But the question remains, what does it take to help a rural village in Kenya to become truly sustainable?  While the answer is still in the process of being developed in Ngomano, it is clearly on its way.

I send my heartfelt congratulations to the first graduating class of The Clay International School!

I’m sitting in a kitchen in Caprese Michelangelo in the hills of Tuscany with a glass of a local white wine.  There s a fire going to keep the room toasty warm.  Jay is busy in our hostess’ kitchen preparing a tomato and fennel fish stew with ingredients that we picked up from the market that day, all of which were locally grown or brought in from the coast.

Is ‘local’ a theme here?  So far, it is and not just because it is a passion of mine.

Let’s start from the beginning:

In Sorrento, where I spent my first few days, the streets are lined with orange trees.  Small orchards of a few trees, herbs, and grape vines seemed to occupy all available space in backyards and on balconies.

Limoncello, a lemon based liquor, is not only regionally unique but also varies by producer.  One variety I tasted on a whim was far better, in my opinion, than others to the point that I might have though it was a different drink all together.

At night while enjoying a stroll down Sorrento’s small side streets, I caught a glimpses of the day’s catch – frutta di mare – in display cases visible from the outside of the restaurants.  No doubt this is meant to entice you in, and also to let you know what the fresh catch is for the day.  Fresh meaning that it was caught that day and brought up from the harbour.

Once seated at the restaurant for the evening I was pleasantly surprised with a local and superior in quality bottle of vino rosso – red wine.  This left no need to spend money on the otherwise pricey wine list, a pleasant occurrence which repeated itself throughout the trip until Rome.

Sorrento’s ability to not only feed me, but to do so locally and with great flavor was definitely appreciated.  I appreciated knowing that the locally produced and harvested foods comprised the entire menu.

Would this be repeated?  Find out about Tuscany in Italian Food Part 2: Tuscany.

Out to dinner with my friend the other night I casually referred to Peak Oil in a discussion. We were talking about topics that might be potential articles on Earth Thrives. As it turns out he didn’t know what Peak Oil was. Hadn’t heard about it and didn’t mention the fact until I had rolled on to another topic.

This friend had spent at least the past two years running a company whose focus sales demographic was the triple bottom line business, and so I assumed that he of all people would know what peak oil was. Turns out I was wrong.

Over the next week I asked another ten colleagues and friends if they knew what Peak oil was. I expected that they would know when I asked and was not prepared to find that all but one of them didn’t.

I shouldn’t have assumed that my friend or anyone else, for that matter, has the same knowledge that I have. This is not to say that I am amazing, but more to show that my foci are unique to my interests. We all have our own interests which lead to what we read, look up and study in depth. The topics that I have spent more time with include (but are certainly not limited to):
Urban gardens, Peak Oil, sustainable communities, organization development; leadership development, GMO’s (genetically modified organisms), socially responsible business, alternative economies, and local living economies.

While I have spent that last two years immersed in the world of green and sustainable while working on my Masters degree from Goddard College in Socially Responsible Business and Sustainable Communities, not everyone else has gone as in depth in the same topics, even industry professionals.

Let’s face it, many people still think of sustainability as a topic that stands on its own, when it is really a lens through which you see the world.

So, don’t assume that if you bring up something like the Andersonville Study in a conversation about why buying local is important that the person you are talking to has a clue to what you just referred. Ask if they have heard about terms, studies, and topics that you otherwise might take for granted that they know. It will help you to educate yourself as well as others and that is what we need to have happen in order to build the breadth and depth of our information.