Happy Holidays from the Lewisburg Green Team! While you’re enjoying all the holiday festivities, don’t forget to give a gift to Mother Earth. Be conscious about how your holiday traditions impact the environment. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, Americans generate 25% more waste during the holiday season. The equivalent of 30 million trees are used to wrap gifts. Holiday lights consume enough energy to power 400,000 homes for an entire year. So while you’re celebrating with loved ones this year, try to adopt traditions that use less resources. Wrap presents with reusable or recyclable materials. Use the energy efficient LED lights. Instead of buying everyone on your list stuff they don’t need, get crafty and give handmade presents, or give the gift of an experience; tickets to an upcoming event or gift certificates. For those that already have everything, consider donating to a charity in their name. If you must buy something, at least shop local and support small businesses instead of the big box stores. This is the most wonderful time of the year, let’s at least make sure it’s not also the most wasteful time!
In keeping with the Lewisburg Green Team’s tradition, we are hosting the second annual ‘Recycled Christmas Sweater Happy Hour’ on December 16th at the Irish Pub 5-7pm. Pull out that sweater from ‘Crazy Aunt Bethany’ in the back of your closet or go thrift store shopping for that award-winning sweater. The Pub will have a special Grinch drink to go with our homemade cookies compliments of the Green Team. Prizes donated by the Love Child and Edith’s Health Food Store will be awarded for the best sweaters! We hope you will join us to celebrate the season and learn about our plans for the coming year.
We will have information on hand to explain how you can sign up with the newly formed Lewisburg Solar Co-op where neighbors are joining together to go solar! Lewisburg Green Team has partnered with WV Sun to offer this opportunity to the surrounding community. By going solar as a group and choosing a single installer, co-op members save money on the cost of their system. We are still recruiting co-op members if you’re interested!
We are also planning to have another Earth Day event encouraging community recycling. This spring we hope to promote urban farming and organize a composting workshop!
Do you have other ideas on how Lewisburg can put the ‘green’ in Greenbrier and become a more sustainable community? We want to hear them! Please join us at our upcoming event or contact us at LewisburgGreenTeam@gmail.com.
– Autumn Leah Crowe. HashtagWV #84, December 2016.
HASHTAGWV ART & ENTERTAINMENT Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Christina Entenmann-Edwards has been a WV resident since September 2008. She was born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and is no stranger to hard work and the entrepreneurial spirit. In 2006, she graduated from Quinnipiac University (Hamden, Connecticut), Cum Laude, with a B.A. in History. In 2010, she graduated with an M.B.A. from Liberty University (Lynchburg, Virginia). In February 2012, Christina launched HashtagWV as the area’s first full-color, free arts and entertainment tabloid + online platform. Christina completed the Leadership West Virginia class of 2021, which is an innovative program that grows, engages, and mobilizes leaders to ignite a life passion to move West Virginia forward.