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In preparation for Invested Citizens’ Story of Stuff presentations in New Haven (Mon) and New York (Wed) this week, we put together a banner made from recyclable and non-recyclable materials (demonstrating that even supposedly non-recyclable materials can still serve a purpose). Among the found treasure are a Doritos bag, a Dunkin Donuts styrofoam coffee cup, and a metal tennis can lid. Check out photos from our banner-making weekend below. (And stay tuned for posts from New Haven and New York coming this week!)

Danielle and Daniel get things started

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Banner.

Tagged as: banner, invested citizens, recycling

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I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and I’m about to begin the final section. He’s diagnosed the problem, described how we got here, and now he’s going to share with us what we can do. It’s a bittersweet moment. I’ve been able to live most of my 28 years in ignorance. And ignorance is bliss, right? Well, no, but change is hard and once I finish this book, I don’t think I’ll ever shop, cook, or eat the same way again. Last night I went to Domino’s and got a medium pepperoni pizza and diet coke. I don’t even like Domino’s, but it was nearby and less disgusting than McDonald’s. It’s time to change bad habits, but it’s also hard to say goodbye. More on my personal journey another time.

If you’re in the Boston area, please join us in Somerville on Tuesday, November 25th at 7pm. We’ll eat some delicious food, discuss the book, and talk about our right to eat food. (Please RSVP to info [at] investedcitizens [.] org so we know how much food to make.)

Not in the area? Join us online the week before Thanksgiving and we’ll talk there.

If you need more reason to read Pollan, maybe you want to be like Barack Obama? Obama reads Pollan and had this to say recently:

I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs.”

Buy it at Better World Books (recommended), Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.

p.s. I like to sing “Book of November” to the tun of Wyclef’s Gone to November. Try it out. It’s catchy.

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I hope you’ll vote today. If you don’t want to go, give me a call: ###-###-####. If you think the lines are too long, I’ll keep you entertained. If you don’t think your vote matters, let’s talk about it.

I voted last week and after so much talk of politics and possibilities for the last two years, I was left a little wanting. I want more than either John McCain or Barack Obama is offering me. But I know how important it is to vote, so I cast my ballot for the candidate who I think is the best listener. Of all the important issues that have been raised in this election: the economy, security, education, energy…why vote for the best listener?

Well, I think the greatest president we’ve ever had is Abe Lincoln (and not just because we share a birthday). Lincoln saved the Union. He freed the slaves. And he did it all while losing a son and living with a crazy wife. He was brilliant, humble, and had a wicked sense of humor. But what made Lincoln truly great was that he could listen. He not only assembled a cabinet of his chief rivals, but he listened to them. His greatest achievement may have been ending slavery, but he didn’t come into the White House planning to abolish it. In fact, if he could have saved the Union, while allowing slavery in the South, he would have done it. But he was open to new ideas. He listened to his heart, his advisors, and his country and eventually issued the Emancipation Proclamation. For that, we remember him as great.

Well, we need our next President to listen too. We’ve got to do more and go further than either candidate is talking about. We need massive investment in education, renewable energy, infrastructure, health care, and foreign aid. We need to make hard choices, shed bad habits , and rethink what it means to be American. I’m not talking about big government, I’m talking about invested citizens.  Presidents aren’t usually pioneers. They govern and they follow. We, the people, need to lead. We just need a President who will listen.

Tagged as: 2008, election, mccain, obama, president, presidential, us

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I dislike fundraising. Talk of money usually makes me uncomfortable.

So, why do I work for and believe in Invested Citizens?

It’s like making chocolate chip cookies. You have to follow a recipe – some kind of plan – to make sure they turn out awesome. If you just throw ingredients together, who knows what you’ll wind up with? Nasty cookies, perhaps.

When you’re already going through the trouble of baking, you might as well follow a good recipe and do it right.

Here’s the point: All of us are already investing money – tremendous amounts of money – in our society. But the recipe we’re following has been mostly written by profit-driven corporations, irresponsible government, and a ruthless marketing industry. What’s the result? Environmental devastation, severe tolls in health and education, widening income and opportunity gaps, and an increasingly finite, populated planet with no plans for sustainability. All very nasty cookies.

Invested Citizens isn’t about getting you to give more. We’re about re-writing the recipe for the world we all deserve to live in.

Take Carrot Mob, for example. They rallied an entire neighborhood in San Francisco to do their weekend grocery shopping at the store that bid to invest the highest portion of their profits in making their store more environmentally friendly. The winning store (22%) made a record windfall that day, became more sustainable, and the neighbors all got what they needed anyway.

Win-Win-Win. That’s a recipe for success. You could do it anywhere.

I don’t like money talk, but I do like Carrot Mob and others who give us creative new recipes for a better world. That’s why I’m an invested citizen.

Let’s share our ideas. Let’s set our minds to solving these problems. The more cooks in this kitchen the better. We already invest in this world every day, so let’s work together to do it the right way and we can cook up something good.

That’s the kind of work I want to be a part of. How about you?

Tagged as: fundraising, invested citizens, money, nasty cookies, recipes for change

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Invested Citizens will be screening The Story of Stuff in Boston, New Haven, and New York for mid-November and early December. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute video that explains production and consumption patterns and their impacts on our planet and ourselves. [click to continue…]

Tagged as: boston, consumerism, events, new haven, new york city, story of stuff, Video

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We’ve been remiss in our posting this week and you deserve to know what’s going on. After finally letting our friends and family know what we’re working on, we’ve gotten a flood of traffic and some great responses. We’ve been busy this week, listening to your feedback, answering questions, and thinking about how we can make Invested Citizens and this site better. We’re working on a few things, which I’ll summarize below. But the most exciting news is that our first intern, Danielle, joined us this morning. She’s awesome and she’ll be helping make our events awesome too.

What’s New:

• Our first event is November 17 in New Haven, CT. Come watch The Story of Stuff with Invested Citizens at The Community Foundation of Greater New Haven.
• Daniel’s starting a book club online and in Boston. We still need a name, but our first book will be An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

In response to your feedback, we’re…

• Furiously working to add content to our site, specifically to describe the problems, rights, and solutions we’re working on.
• Adding more images.You asked and we’re trying to answer.
• Producing a video about what we’re about. This will take some time, but we understand that some of you don’t like text. We understand.
• Hoping to get a new design for our site. We know our site could be prettier, but in case you haven’t caught this, we’re a startup and we’re trying to balance the need to look good with the fact that our money is better spent elsewhere for the moment. If you’d like to fix this problem, we’d like to talk to you.

I could say more, but I need to go do those things I just told you we’re working on. Thanks for stopping by.

Tagged as: book club, events, intern, new haven, story of stuff, updates

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You give every day. You give time to keeping up your health and appearance. You give support to friends who need comfort or attention. You give money to merchants who rely on your business. There are many ways to give, and they’re all good.

When it comes to community giving, the story is the same. Money, time, counsel, clothes, food, education, and solidarity: these are all ways of giving. We should never hoist one way over another – to write a check and to feed a child are equally noble and worthy.

But here we are in 2008, and there are nearly 2 billion people in poverty and AIDS ravages Africa and one estimate says that half of all health problems in the world are caused by unsafe drinking water and our natural resources are hitting their limits and climate change is a nice way of saying our time on Earth is limited – and we’re speeding toward the deadline.

Wow. (Deep breath.) We’ve heard it all before, and it’s overwhelming.
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Is there a more important question? For me, this has been the driving force behind the formation of Invested Citizens. To create the world that I want for my children. [click to continue…]

Tagged as: children, discussion, future, grandchildren, Questions

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