April 13th – May 15th
After attending the “Dream Reborn” conference and working with numerous other organizations in Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi to develop “Green Jobs” programs, we were ready to come to North Carolina to work with the Grassroots Energy Alliance in building a green jobs initiative in Durham. The Grassroots Energy Alliance is a coalition of four organizations: SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), NC WARN (North Carolina Waste Reduction Awareness Network), NC Fair Share, and NC Interfaith Power and Light. Working with this coalition, we’ve been spending our days reaching out to Durham schools with the goal of identifying student leaders, teachers, and school administrators who would be interested in playing a part in the development of the initiative.
We are really excited to be working on this campaign because Durham seems to have some similar qualities to our new hometown, Richmond–it used to be a fairly industrial city, there are lots of areas that have been out of the focus of legislators and residents for the past couple decades, and there seem to be multi-faceted efforts and actions to revitalize the city–and being involved with the campaign from the upstart in Durham is giving us valuable experiences and ideas for actions we could take in Richmond and elsewhere. To learn more about the ideas we’re putting into action in Richmond, join us at GlobeHopper coffee on Monday nights for an open discussion with other Richmonders about various community issues and initiatives. Another exciting aspect of working with the schools for GEA’s campaign is that it gives us the chance to not only talk about the green jobs initiative, but also recruit for our summer youth campaign school. To learn more about the Back Porch Summer Campaign School, a two week summer opportunity for activists ages 16-21, see the on the road page.
Aside from the main focus of the GEA’s green jobs initiative, we’ve also had a really wonderful time in Chapel Hill checking out all the interesting environmental things going on down here. One of the best has been the transportation system throughout the triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill). Part of Back Porch’s decision to sell our truck and trailer was that we could be more efficient and still accomplish our goals if we relied on more conventional means of transportation (carpooling, public transportation, bikes) than a truck that had been converted to run on vegetable oil. In the triangle area, that has been proven true without a doubt. We ride our bikes or take the bus everywhere, and thanks to the Triangle Transit Authority and quickly rising gas prices, we’ve been able to do so with only positive changes to our budget. On a side note, if you ever find yourself in Chapel Hill, take a bike ride down Dairyland Road to Maple View Farm–it is an incredibly beautiful ride, and the ice cream at the dairy farm is awesome. (brought to you by Brenna and Virginia)
For more information on Green Jobs, check out the following links:
