Talking to the Mayor of Louisville at our booth
Last Saturday we set up a booth at a local event called the Mayor's Healthy Hike. It was held at a beautiful park called the Jefferson Memorial Forest. We told people about our project, got some personal pledges, and made contacts to call at local companies. The personal pledges we got totalled almost 59,000 lbs.! One of the exciting happenings of the day was that we got to meet the mayor of Louisville, Jerry Abramson. We told him about our project, and he was very excited. Kaitlin also was able to get on the PA system and tell everyone about our project. We were able to make a lot of good contacts.
Kaitlin telling everyone about our project.
We are making progress on getting company pledges. A local architectural firm called Arrasmith, Judd, Rapp & Chavan, Inc., made a pledge of 14,770 pounds of CO2 saved per year. The Bristol Bar & Grille, which operates a large catering service, made a large pledge of 182,300 lbs.! We are in negotiations with a dozen or more large companies in the area, including one of the largest healthcare providers in the state, which is very exciting. We are scheduled to make a presentation to their executive staff in November. This could potentially be a huge pledge! We'll keep you posted.
Another bit of excitement is that a national organization of nurses who are interested in making helathcare greener are having their national conference next June in D.C. They have asked us to be presenters. While this will occur after our project is over, we still feel that it is part of our mission to help reduce CO2 emissions and save the bears. This could be huge, with the possibility of reaching people nationwide. Healthcare is one of the largest emitters of CO2 gases, and being able to reach them could be monumental.
We also gave a presentation to Atherton High School's Marine Biology Club. They were very interested in our information and will try to get the word out about our project.
We are thrilled so far with how things are going. Working with companies on this project isn't always easy, but we are confidant that we can reach many of them and make the difference needed.
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