Alexa Russo

Good morning team! We have made a great impact over the past month.
Your individual actions lead to collective impact -- you matter.

In our team of 17, we have consumed up to 34 meatless or vegan meals, saved up to 31 lbs of CO2, spent roughly 823 minutes outdoors, travelled up to 20 miles by foot, saved up to 415 gallons of water, and spent up to 319 minutes learning about our impacts. And that's just the impact that we remembered to track! I know I forgot to track my actions once or twice, and I'm sure you might have too. 

Imagine the impact if we each got two friends to join us, or if we got a community to participate! Tell your friends about what you did and how their impact matters too. 

We are in this together. 

Thank you for participating and making the world a better place, one action at a time. 

What Earth Week events have you participated in this week? 

Happy Earth Week everyone! I hope you get outdoors this week and celebrate the earth with us! 
Visit tinyurl.com/earthweek2020 for a full calendar of events to engage with. See you there! 

What are you struggling with most in your challenge, and how can we work together to help? 

Yesterday I went on a walk with my dog around our neighborhood, and then moved my work station to our back yard to get some sun, it was magnificent to feel the sun on my skin, it makes me so grateful.


How are everyone's challenges going?

This is one of my favorite times of year when the cherry blossom and Indian plum trees are in bloom. Today I reflected on why, and I thought I would share!

I have a tattoo of a cherry blossom branch, which for me symbolizes the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is one of those ineffable concepts that you often find in Japanese culture, but when broken apart: "Wabi is about finding beauty in simplicity, and a spiritual richness in serenity in detaching from the material world. Sabi is more concerned with the passage of time, with the way that all things grow and decay and how aging alters the visual nature of those things" (from the book Wabi Sabi by Beth Kempton, pg 10 - highly recommend this book).

I reflected on this concept today, and I feel that it still has just as much meaning for me as it did many years ago. I spent a month in Japan, and this concept imprinted itself upon me, unknowingly, not purposefully, but so powerfully; and I think that it is in these times that we must reflect on what is important and how impermanent our time on this earth is, and leave it better then we found it. 

I planned my dinner and lunch for today by getting a rotisserie chicken, peeling off the meat (that'll be lunch), saving the carcass and making a chicken broth in my instant pot for pho tonight! Yummy!