When I feel really terrible about the state of the world, nothing makes me feel better than getting out there and doing something about it. I know I am not alone- 70% of millenials volunteer regularly. Well, we used to. Volunteering is one of those things that seems nearly impossible to do right now- how can you help people when you can't get within six feet? Are you really doing any good if you are potentially spreading the virus while you do it? 

If you are feeling motivated to do something positive while everything is so negative, there are more opportunities than I expected! One of the coolest things I have seen is Give 19- their goal is that more people be effected by giving than by Covid. It's a pretty cool place to start if you are feeling negative or helpless. I think I will try it as a project with my kids. 

 Want more ideas? Here are some things to try- 

1. Go for Litter Walks

I don't know if this is true everywhere, but I have seen so much more trash around lately. I just kept kicking myself that I didn't have a trash bag with me when we were out on walks or at the park. So, I got two litter pickers (which my kids are really excited about), and we started cleaning up the places we visit. It isn't a huge thing, but I think it genuinely does add a little bit of kindness and stewardship to our regular routine. 

Can you imagine if our communities were actually cleaner when we could get back to whatever normal looks like next? I think that is pretty powerful.

2. Get Involved in your Buy Nothing Group or Start One! 

I love the Buy Nothing Project- if you have never heard of it, check out their website. There are hundreds of Buy Nothing Groups in the United States, each one represents a hyper local neighborhood. In their facebook group, neighbors gift and ask for gifts freely. Our Buy Nothing group has connected us to the community in ways I never thought possible, and it lifts my spirit every single day. While the rest of social media is brutal, Buy Nothing groups are a space where people are mindfully kind to each other. During the pandemic, our neighborhood has made sure everyone has food, people don't feel alone, they even walked someone's dog while they were in quarantine! 

Want to do something little to help others everyday? Try Buy Nothing. If your neighborhood has a group, join it! If not, you can do a huge service to your neighborhood by starting one. Truly, it can transform the way people interact with each other. If you want to hear more about my experience, I will happily share with you! 

3. Become a Crisis Counselor

Crisis Text Line needs volunteers to answer the texts from people in crisis. Considering how the past year has been for people's mental health, I imagine they are getting more texts than ever. If you are in a good place and are able to keep calm and empathic, this could be a powerful way to help someone in this season. 

4. Donate Blood

The Red Cross still needs blood donors, and they seem to have pretty covid-safe and thoughtful approach. We all know by now that life doesn't stop just because a pandemic is going on- this is a great way to help them continue to attend to the needs out there. 

5. Get People Fed

With so many people out of work and struggling, hunger is as much an American problem as ever. Check out your local food banks and pantries. Most areas have them, so you can be sure that the people right where you are get the help they need. Larger organizations like Meals on Wheels are hard at work, with new rules for Covid (but a high need for volunteers as always). 

Want more options? Check out Invisible Hands, 

None of this seem quite right? You can also take up political activism right now. Sending your representatives letters, make phone calls, and push for a world that is better for everyone. Just showing you pay attention makes a difference!

If you want to see what specific needs are local to you, Volunteer Match can be a great place to start. 

We all know that our planet desperately needs our help, but it can be so overwhelming to know where to start. Luckily, there are opportunities all over the place- groups in the thick of this fight need your support, your signature, and even your participation!

So excited about the finds for this week. Let us know what you are up to so we can support you!

1. Resolve to have a Slow Fashion Season (and Buy No New Clothes this Summer)

This Friday, over 11,000 people are putting a freeze on buying clothes for 3 months. Last year, CollAction has a slow fashion summer, where 2,000+ people didn't buy any new clothes for 3 months. This year that number has exploded, and you have until June 21st to get in and help. This is just what we mean by collective action. Having a no shop summer by ourselves still has an impact, but multiplying it by 11 thousand other people starts to send a tangible message to stores.

I am totally doing this. Do it with me.

According to their outline, you can still buy secondhand or do swaps with friends. But no new clothes until summer is over. Their goal was 10 thousand people. Let's help them get to 15k by Friday. The more of us participate, the more impact this has on the market that wants our business.

2. Get Involved at the Stop Plastic-Take Action! Group on Facebook 

If you are looking for simple actions to take on a regular basis, I think this facebook group could be the perfect spot. People post lots of petitions to sign and ideas for getting involved, but at least from what I can see, it doesn't look overwhelming or overbearing.

If you have been trying to figure out how the heck to track down things that you can do quickly, this is the spot to get started.

3. Tweet for a Climate Debate

As of right now, the DNC has decided to not hold a Primary Debate about the Climate Crisis. Considering the spot we are in, that is pretty bonkers. Just because they are afraid to lose fossil fuel money doesn't mean that the rest of us have to be scared.

Greenpeace is encouraging those of us who care about the environment to tweet NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo to ask for climate questions in the debates. It takes a minute, but with all of our help, we could send a pretty strong message that the environment cannot be ignored.

If you do it, be sure to use this hashtag- #climatedebate2020 in your tweets!

I have never done the twitter thing, but I am planning on getting to it this week. It is such a fast way to reach businesses and leaders, and if enough of us do it together, it can really make a difference.

4. Sign the Target Petition! 

Customers who Care began a petition a few months ago to ask Target to stop distributing plastic bags at all of their store. Target originally said a flat out no, but they have been slowly changing their tune. They told the organizers that they are rethinking their decision.

This is the perfect time to go sign, and to have everyone you know sign. This would keep millions of plastic bags out of the water, but even more importantly, this huge brand can shift norms and expectations in areas where they don't think about plastic waste at all.

Check out the petition here. Sign it. Share it. It will take less time than reading this blog did.




What are you doing to help the environment this week?

Yesterday was World Oceans Day, so this week, let's all do a little something to protect the beautiful water which sustains and awes us. Our oceans are in trouble on every front- they are facing unthinkable damage from waste, climate change, and loss of sea life. 

So, you have stopped using plastic bags and carry a reusable bottle. That's awesome! Starting to transform your personal choices is the perfect place to start taking care of the environment. 

But, your work isn't done yet. 

If we really want to take care of our planet, we have to pair our personal changes with larger collective action. This can mean joining in on a march, writing or calling a politician, or signing a petition. Sometimes it take 3 minutes, but your voice added to the list of many can be a powerful thing. Just like our giant trash island was made of a billion individual choices, big changes can only be made with millions of voices. 

You don't have to do anything huge, risk getting arrested, or sometimes even leave your house. Consider yourself a beginner activist, and I will point to little stuff you can be doing each week to have a big impact. 




It's March 10th, and it's a huge week for the environment. I know I am excited about everything that is going on, but I am also potty training my toddler, so I get that sometimes you need small steps to take, not big ones. Don't sit on the sidelines; get involved!

1. Participate in the Youth Climate Strike

On March 15th all over the US and the world, students will be walking out of school for the Youth Climate Strike. You can read their letter preceding the Climate Strike on The Guardian. Their point is that the generations that came before them have failed at preventing climate catastrophe, and they will fight until governments take radical action.

All you need to do is show up and make the crowd look that much bigger. Bonus points if you have a kid (of any size, really). Want to find an event near you? This page has a long list of the events (and this one is International and even longer), but if you don't see one near you, I would do a little research. My hunch is that this will come up in lots of communities not listed.

If you want to help, but it turns out there is nothing nearby, you can still support the Youth Climate Strike by donating to their

2. Write Trader Joe's to Say Thank You

 (Or Call One of their Competitors to Rub it In) 

Last week, Trader Joe's announced they would be radically reducing their plastic packaging, keeping millions of tons of plastics out of our ecosystem. Would it have been better if they did it sooner? And without being pushed to? Yep, but the lesson here is that companies really don't do the right thing until they know people are watching.

So you can write Trader Joe's and say thank you OR you can write the grocery stores chains near you and point out that this is the trend they need to keep up with. Either one can  be 3 or 4 sentences. Just taking a minute to call them out shows these companies that the effort is worth it in customer satisfaction.

3. Call your Representatives About the Green New Deal

Have you read about the Green New Deal yet? If not, this article is a helpful (and quick) primer on what it is all about.

No matter what politics you personally hold, this is a perfect moment to call up all of your representatives and tell them how much taking care of the environment means to you. This is even more powerful if you aren't a young Democrat, because they are banking on you not caring. Let them know you are paying attention and that you want to see profound action to help the environment.

Not sure who you need to call? 5calls is a cool app that will help you find your representatives numbers. Sometimes they even have helpful little scripts to read if you feel nervous.

4. Talk About It

Never hide that the environment is on your mind. If you annoy people, so what? Tell your friends about going to the Climate Strike on Friday; better yet, invite them to come with you. Share this post and ask people to try these things with you. When someone brings up the Green New Deal or AOC, speak up and say the parts of it that you like. Pray for it in your place of worship.

Being bold in your personal life, staying positive but speaking the truth, could be the thing that will change the course of history. Because we absolutely ALL need to be on board and fighting this fight. No single answer is going to be enough. No single action is going to be enough. It's going to take a million solutions on a million fronts to turn this around. So what you do matters, and the more others see it, the better.



What are you doing to fight for our planet this week? Any cool petitions that need signed? Share your ideas so we can get in there and help. 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

This month on the blog, we are going to focus on bringing down the plastic straw. We certainly aren't alone in this mission, and for good reason. There are three plastic items that are especially pointless in our daily life, yet they are chief villains in polluting the oceans:

1. Plastic Shopping Bags
2. Plastic Water (and other drink) Bottles
3. Plastic Straws

Earlier this year, a study projected that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. The ocean water should be a habitat for sustainable food and biodiversity on this planet. Sadly, with these plastics taking over (a dump truck of plastic EVERY MINUTE), babies born this year won't see an adulthood where fish are safe to eat. This is horrifying and tragic; is this really the best we can do for the next generation? Is the convenience of these items worth it for our oceans to look like this:

from the amazing Common Dreams

Don't let these daunting numbers scare you- we aren't helpless. Positive changes are happening So many groups and organizations are fighting to prevent this horrible prediction.Check out The Plastic Pollution Coalition who is fighting plastic pollution and their lobbyists on a global scale, looking into microbeads where they are still legal (and poisoning fish) and helping all these smaller groups connect.

Joining The Last Plastic Straw totally changed my perspective on my own impact using plastic straws, bottles, and bags. Join this group. It not only fights to minimize straws on a political and business level, but this California-based group really shows how one person can make a huge difference by changing their everyday choices. They challenge restaurants to:

- Only serve biodegradable straws
-Only serve straws when asked
- Stop serving straws all together

This doesn't seem like a lot to ask, but if they complete their goal of reaching restaurants all over the country, they could totally cut Big Plastic off at the knees and save literally millions of straws from the water EVERYDAY. They are making progress daily, but join up and you can help too!

Not everything is a huge undertaking- check out Activist Abby, who is organizing plastic clean ups around the Great Lakes. Read her story- even as a young teenage girl, she was attacked by the plastic lobby with the intent of preventing plastic bag bans. She fought back, got 173,000 signatures and won. As a teenager. Activists can only succeed with your help, so even if you can't get out there and clean up, locating amazing people like these and having their back can help change the world.

Want to sign against big plastic right now? Back up Californians trying to get the plastic bag ban though!

With all of this effort, things should be improving, right? Wrong. 

They are making progress, but they are fighting the rush of plastic's momentum. Big plastics lobby for the plastic bags. Restaurant continue to serve straws with every drink (as if grown adults couldn't possibly life their drink). And worst of all, we continue to consume as if we aren't part of the problem.

We are the biggest part of the problem, my dears. They couldn't get away with it if we weren't so attached to these easy plastics. If your children and grandchildren live in a world of all dirty water, it will be your fault. Not just your fault, but a shared fault. A debt we add to every time we choose these plastics.

Now, I know this is harsh, but it is true.

This blog intentionally tries to keep the "environmentalist" bar low. You don't have to buy all hemp clothes and turn off your electric to count as caring about the environment, but you do need to acknowledge your daily shopping, consuming, and tossing of waste do add up to a real effect on the environment. If we all push to make small changes, they will add up and we can change a lot of negative environmental momentum, minimize waste, and send the message to companies that it is worth their investment to do the right thing. None of us can save the world on our own, but if we all do a little, our stewardship will have incredible effects.

So I am not going to shame you, but if you care AT ALL about this Earth, then let's call this the bare minimum effort. We all can do the Bare Minimum with nearly no inconvenience or personal cost. These three items- bottles, bags, and straws, should be cut from your consumption diet.

Try cutting your straw use in half. Then cut that in half.

So why are straws so bad? Is this really worth the battle?

Oh, yes, they are truly awful.

First, in our individual lifetimes, we will make a larger volume of trash from our straws than we will from cars. So think about your car. Now fill it with straws. You will throw out more straws than that in the time you drive that car.

Second, straws are especially hard to clean up, because they are so small. You can read a lot about effort to clean the oceans, especially on the coasts which are starting to look like this:

from triple pundit.com

We need these efforts to clean the oceans to succeed for our children's future and health, so if straws make it much worse, we need to stop the incredible volume being poured into the oceans.

Third, straws are deadly to wildlife. Have you seen the turtle video? Tell me you can get through this thing and still drink from plastic straws.

Need more motivation? Join facebook groups like The Plastic Pollution Coalition and The Last Plastic Straw. Seeing how much some areas are realy facing down plastics and MAKING PROGRESS gets me excited to do more myself.

So what can we do?

from the Ocean Conservancy

This month, I am on a mission, and I want you to join me. This is the plan.

1. When you are out to restaurants and order a drink, just ask "No straws please." I am taking the No Straw Challenge, and I am taking it seriously. Please click the link and join me.

Don't even let them leave them at the table, because servers and bussers will just toss them in paper wrappers. If you need a straw for something you drink, bring one with you.

2. Pick 5 restaurants you love but that use plastic straws, and tell them to stop- Write them a review on Yelp or a note on their facebook page, and ask them to stop serving drinks with plastic straws. You can encourage them to stock paper straws instead, but let them know you think this is a flaw in your business plan. I am going to write a restaurant a letter every day, but you do what works for you. No business will change an approach if they think it is working. Use these resources to show them it isn't.

You can do a little Everyday Activism. Nothing huge, not a massive time suck, but you will help save the water from these plastics.

Need some inspiration or guidance on how to approach it? Check out the Last Plastic Straws website and see how they approach these businesses! Help encourage a voluntary plastic straw ban!

If you want bonus points, talk to your friends about the state of straws or plastic bags in your area- lots of places (especially ones on the coast, that can see the effects of these "disposable" plastics) are taking serious stands against these plastics, and they are starting to be banned all over the world. Morocco just banned plastic bags, and they were the world's second largest users. This can happen for us, and if you team up with friends, you might be able to make it happen where you live.

Not too much, right? I have certainly sent us all on more complex and crazy missions before. Who is going to try to break their straw habit with me? Do it for the turtles and future sushi restaurants, for goodness sake!