We wanted to take a few minutes to introduce you to our 2012 Save the Earth partners. So without further adieu, meet Plant with Purpose, Trees, Water, & People, and the Cobblestone Project Farm.
Plant With Purpose was founded in 1984 by Tom Woodard. At the time, Woodard was volunteering in the Dominican Republic with a Christian relief agency, but he and his colleagues very quickly realized that despite their best efforts to help the poor, the situation was worsening.
Woodward saw that there was a direct connection between poverty and the environment that wasn’t being addressed by traditional aid organizations. He understood that since most of the world’s poor are rural poor, and are therefore dependent on the land for survival, any long-term solution to poverty would have to take into account how deforestation, and the resultant loss in soil fertility, affected income potential.
Plant With Purpose was founded to bring a holistic approach to the fight against poverty that includes environmental, economic, as well as spiritual renewal. They believe that this three-part approach is the key to creating lasting, sustainable change, and we use a variety of techniques such as savings-led micro-credit loans, business skills training, and community development to empower the poor to solve their own problems.
Since those humble beginnings in the Dominican Republic, Plant With Purpose has expanded its program to include hundreds of villages in Haiti, Mexico, Thailand, Burundi, Tanzania, and the Dominican Republic.
On behalf of Project 7, Plant with Purpose is planting trees in three regions in 84 communities in Haiti.
Trees, Water & People is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 1998 by Stuart Conway and Richard Fox, and is staffed by a group of dedicated conservationists who feel strongly about helping communities to protect, conserve, and manage the natural resources upon which their long-term well-being depends. Their work is guided by two core beliefs:
That natural resources are best protected when local people play an active role in their care and management; and preserving local trees, wetlands, and watersheds is essential for the ongoing social, economic, and environmental health of communities everywhere.
On behalf of Project 7, Trees, Water & People is planting trees in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
The Cobblestone Project Farm is designed to use sustainable agriculture to help the under-resourced in our community by focusing on four strategic pillars: economic development, education, hunger relief, and community. On behalf of Project 7, The Farm is planting 150 blueberry bushes or two 300 foot rows of blueberries in Northwest Arkansas. That’s a whole lot of blueberries! These blueberries will provide much needed fruit that will be directed towards feeding families at risk for food insecurity in our community for years to come. And as an added bonus, blueberries have many nutritional benefits that include being packed with Vitamin C, high in dietary fiber, and leading fruit in antioxidant.
What other non-profits do you know that are doing great work to 'Save the Earth'?
Earth Day is just around the corner (it's Sunday, April 22 for those of you who didn't know), and we are excited to announce a special promotion going on this week in celebration through our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
From April 15 through April 22, for every new “like” on Facebook and every new follower on Twitter, we will donate funds to one of our SAVE the Earth partners and plant a tree into the earth.
It’s that simple.
If you like us on Facebook, we’ll plant a tree. If you follow us on Twitter, we’ll plant a tree.
Pretty awesome huh? So head over to our accounts right now to join us as we work to save the Earth, and don’t forget to tell all your friends about this promotion.
Together we can plant thousands of trees back into the earth in honor of Earth Day. Let’s do it!
We have some exciting news today...
From now until Earth Day {April 22}, Project 7 is teaming up with World Vision ACT:S to to do something good to make the earth a better place.
What is ACT:S? Well, it's an activism network that challenges, inspires, and equips individuals to ignite contagious movements that connect faith and justice, impacting the issues most urgent to the world’s poor and ensuring that all people have the right to live out their full potential.
What is the Earth Day Challenge? Earth Day is April 22nd and the challenge is to share how you’re going to ACT during the month of April. Together, our small individual actions can create a big change that will affect our planet and the most vulnerable.
So go here and upload resources, share stories, and take ACTion. And we'll keep you updated along the way!
As you may or may not have heard, earlier this week we launched a campaign to plant 2 million fruit trees through the sale of our Save the Earth products.
One easy way you can get involved is to share photos anytime you see our product or our campaign in the wild. And be sure to tag us on Facebook or include the hashtags #Project7 and #SaveTheEarth so we can keep track of them. We'll select our favorite photo each week and send the lucky winner some Project 7 loot!
Here are all the places we'll be gathering photos!
Foursquare: https://foursquare.com/project7
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/project7
Google +: https://plus.google.com/b/113420756352234814272/
Instagram: @project7
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/project7/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/project7
Forests mean different things to different people. Whether we realize it or not, all of us benefit from forests.
Here are some quick facts that you should consider:
Many refer to the Amazon Rainforest as the “Lungs of our Planet” because it produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen.
25% of the active ingredients in cancer fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest.
There are at least 3,000 fruits in the rainforest and of those we only use roughly 200.
Currently, 121 prescription drugs come from plant derived sources, and less than 1% of the rainforest plants have been tested by scientists.
The list is endless. Tragically, with all of these benefits, we still continue to lose almost 2 acres of rainforest every second. Here at Project 7, we are not OK with this statistic. That is where our Save the Earth products come in.
This week we have partnered with Fab.com to plant more trees. So we are asking you to partner with Fab and Project 7. Click here to see the three different Save the Earth packages that are available on Fab. Whether you are a big coffee drinker or you simply need to freshen up your breath, you can do all of that and make the world a better place at the same time. Depending on which products you purchase you can help us plant up to 14 fruit trees. So go ahead and brew for a better world.
