Hello Gainesville Greenies!
Thanks so much to those of you who came out to Lux a few weeks ago to enjoy delicious Indian food prepared by Sarjit and Ed Kellerman on behalf of Project Nepal, which provides educational materials to students in Nepal. We had a wonderful meal and a nice time. Steve Nichtberger told us how he’d created the lovely Lux Bar from recycled materials, and shared his rather challenging experiences as a business owner trying to meet local code requirements.
Then we responded to a half dozen questions about the local job market… thanks to Ken McMurry for taking notes. I sent our responses to the White House Community Job Forum as requested. I was pleased that our group offered a lot of advice on developing more sustainable businesses and job opportunities, and I hope that our input is useful as the White House develops further recovery plans. I’ll let you all know if we get any further response from the administration.
For those of you who are in business, I learned about a great program managed by Florida Works that provides salary reimbursement for workers who meet specific requirements, i.e. they need to be the parent of a minor child. This seems like so much better a plan than just using government funds to pay out unemployment claims. It gets people to work and it helps businesses. Interested business owners should apply right away for the Florida Back to Work program at: http://floridaworksonline.com/.
We’re requesting a minimum donation of $10 to attend the party and partake the refreshments, but we do hope you’ll consider making a more substantial donation to the Film Festival – please bring your checkbooks. And if you know of any sustainable businesses, organizations, or individuals who’d like to support the environmental film festival, please bring them along, too. I’ve attached the film festival brochure with details on sponsorship opportunities. We’ve got a poster in the works, and any Major Sponsors who sign up by Jan. 27 will have their logo displayed on this beautiful promotional piece that will be posted across town through the end of March. Please pass this information along to anyone or any businesses you think might like to be part of this exciting event.
Final note: We have some elections coming up in March, and I thought it would be nice to host any candidates who’d like to share their views with our members at our March meeting. If you know a candidate, please invite them to join our March 3 meeting and we’ll offer a forum for them to share their ideas. Please let me know…
Many thanks to all, and to all, Happy Green Year!
Best,
trish*
