Go Social with your Sustainable Contacts
I’ve posted here before how I’ve had problems finding certain goods here in the country, such as naturally raised, grass fed and organic meat.
No more.
A yoga instructor and massage therapist from our town has created a Facebook page that directs people to businesses that sells sustainable goods, including locally, naturally grown meat.
Although it is just getting off of the ground, it will be a place we can share ideas and maybe even get a crop swapping initiative going like Sarah at Lettuce Eat Kale discusses on her blog this week.
This is a great idea for anyone wanting to build a community of like-minded folks in any area.
Creating a Facebook page is easy. You could call it “Sustainable xxx (name of your town)” and link to businesses and people who can help you build the page., give you ideas and get the community off of the ground.
It might even be a great place for folks to share posts about upcoming protests and meetings. In Wellfleet, Mass., for example, Living Large community member Alexandra, routinely posts on the Chez Sven blog about her town’s fight against the utility company, which wants to use pesticides to kill vegetation. She also has many other sustainable living posts, all of which would be great on a “Sustainable Wellfleet” Facebook page.
Do you know someone who has done this or have you? How is it working?
This is a fantastic idea. Will have to look to see if we have something similar here in the Tacoma area.
If not, maybe you can start one, Heather!
Thanks for the mention, Kerri! Our town does not have a local newspaper either. The Provincetown paper has a Wellfleet page, and there are two Cape Cod newspapers, but I really regret the days when we could read about what mattered to the people of our town in the Wellfleet Advocate.
I know, it is sad, Alexandra. We have a small weekly here, but it doesn’t have much in the way of useful information in it. They’re still stuck in the old days and use prime space for gossip pages as all small town newspapers once had. We don’t even take that one anymore. The other one is a daily, but comes out of the next county, so the news for our town is few. The great part about the Internet is that it allows us all to be news publishers now!
Cool idea. I haven’t heard of anything like this locally here so having a combined effort is intriguing.
Let me know if you need more info.
There is a new “local” grocer at the bottom of our canyon. I haven’t stopped by yet, but I will soon. I saw a tweet recently from the outgoing town mayor that sales tax revenues are up 5.5%, and I like to think that’s from small businesses doing well … in this vein.
I always try to support the local businesses, it’s a much better option than Wal-Mart, although we do have to shop there too.
Great idea! I know that Kansas City has many businesses dedicated to sustainable living, especially in the arts community. I’m sure they’d love having a place to advertise their products and services, to people looking for green options when shopping.
This may also be a good idea to start in your own small community, Kathleen!
What a fantastic idea. We have so many sustainable businesses and people in this community, it would be great to get them all in one place.
I know, Jane. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. But I don’t have the contacts in the community as the person who put the page up, so I’m sure she will do a much better job of bringing it all together.
The internet has become a powerful, immediate tool for getting the message out (and sustaining the message) on such important topics. That is a good idea for a FB page, too.
It’s really a good idea in the community where I live, where there isn’t a good paper or community meeting place to bring this all together.