I recently went with a group of 145 people down to Tecate, Mexico. Our goal was to build 5 houses in 3 days for families that give our concept of “needy” a new meaning. Additionally, I wanted to bless the family I was building for financially. I had a certain amount of money set aside that I planned to donate, but, with a “spur of the moment” idea, 3 days before I left I decided to take to Facebook to see how much more money I could raise from my “friends”. I posted updates like the following:
I’ll be in Mexico next week building a house for a family of 5 that lives on $85/mo. If you’d like to make a donation directly to this family please let me know!
The Socialization of Earth Day
Posted by Karen Stockert on April 22, 2013Last week, while attending an event to support an organization I volunteer for, I had the privilege of shaking the hand of Denis Hayes, the man responsible for coordinating the first Earth Day in 1970. On April 22 of that year, an impressive 20 million people were said to participate across the country. It boggles the mind to imagine how a skeleton crew of volunteers – passionate as they were – could turn out such crowds, all without the aid of the Internet, much less social media. While I didn’t get to ask him personally, I can only imagine the occasion he was so instrumental in launching must inspire a mix of pride and bewilderment 43 years later.
In 1970, students, parents, labor leaders, politicians, rich people and regular folks galvanized around a common concern for the environment and turned out for thousands of teach-ins and community events. On the most modern medium of the day, “Today” devoted 10 hours of coverage to Earth Day. Back then, remember, there were just 4 channels! The modern environmental movement had been launched.
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