SLOW FASHION: The Race to Recycle Foot Gear w/SJC+ART @The Mother Earth Festival tomorrrow, Saturday, April 24th.

SJC+ART AND SLOWFASHION/FFFARS IS HOT OFF A FABULOUS EARTH DAY WEEKEND @LIBERTY STATE PARK FOR #HUDSONEARTHDAY AND THE PEACE COMMUNITY GARDEN @SAINT PAUL'S LUTHERAN CHURCH AND NOW AT HISTORIC JERSEY CITY HARSIMUS COVE CEMETERY FOR THE ANNUAL MOTHER EARTH FESTIVAL AND THE ARRIVAL OF THE BABY GOATS! 

SLOW FASHION: The Race To Recycle Foot Gear! Footwear Drive Fundraiser To Benefit Ecuador Earthquake Relief

When: Saturday April 30th, 2016, 12 NOON-4 PM Where:The Historic Jersey City & Harsimus Cemetery’s annual 'Mother Earth Festival' A Celebration of Earth and Arbor Day + the arrival of the Baby Goats!

Here’s your chance to CLEAN OUT & RECYCLE your unwanted footwear! While keeping this waste stream from going to landfills. Bring footwear you wish to donate with you to Sustainable JC’s table and check out all the cool projects they are working on, sign-up to volunteer with us and enter a free raffle to win a Rain Barrel!

Spread the word amongst family and friends - bring their footwear too! The more footwear we collect, the more money we raise. Donated footwear will find their way to those who need them globally, with financial proceeds going to Ecuador Earthquake Relief and toward assisting others in need!

ACCEPTABLE Footwear: All types of men's, women's and children's: athletic sneakers, shoes, and footwear. Footwear MUST be paired using rubber bands or shoelaces.

NOT ACCEPTABLE Footwear: Any footwear that is damaged, has holes or tears, singles shoes of any type, rubber flip flops, slippers, roller blades, roller skates, ice skates, ski boots or mud-covered footwear

YOU GIVE US YOUR GENTLY USED FOOTWEAR WE GIFT YOU WITH SUSTAINABLE SWAG! TOP DONORS ENROLL WITH EVELYN VON GIZYCKI ON SITE FOR A CHANCE TO WIN TICKETS TO OUR UPCOMING FUNDRAISER TBA!

Questions and for more information contact Evelyn von Gizycki at 646-522-4549 or http://press@sustainablejc.org.

Follow us on social media platforms  to connect with and check back here as well for re-caps and event photos: @sustainablejc AND www.facebook.com/SLOWFASHIONFFFARS This is not tax deductible or a charitable solicitation; footwear drive cannot supply donation receipts to participants. Your footwear is collected and sold to footweardrive.com. Every step we take helps us to divert waste away from landfills!

Madrid & Paris Green Infrastructure Movement - Next Stop Jersey City !

As a river City impacted by exteme weather events, plus our Mayor's commitment to lower our carbon footprint (ignore the Nerdwallet claim as is a form of greenwashing), we have an opportunity to ratchet up more Green Infrastructure (GI) in Jersey City - this will help mitigate climate change impacts and create a higher quality of life in line with social and environmental priorities expressed by our community. As SJC continues our educational outreach on this front, e.g., our Certificate Program In Urban Sustainability, which will highlight Green Infrastructure opportunities related to Building activity + our upcoming GI demonstration projects, the City of Jersey City is undergoing a review of opportunities to integrate Green Infrastructure into New Construction, Redevelopment Projects, and Streetscapes across the City.  This is amazing news and SJC feels that our advocacy efforts, and sometimes nudgy approach, has paid off.  The groundswell of interest in bringing Nature into the City, to help carry the load, not only makes common sense, but makes financial sense.

Integrating GI approaches to our Master Planning activities, will not only mitigate current and future costs of managing stormwater (think property taxes that are intended to pay for needed infrastructure builds and rebuilds), but will pay us all back with quality of life dividends, e.g., air quality (that same Nerdwallet survey cited JC near the bottom of those cities surveyed in this category).  Also, seems like a synergistic bonus to the City's investment in their rightfully inspired 'Culture of Health' initiative.

Gaining the partnership of the Developer community to GREEN THEIR PROJECTS, in compliance with industry best practices, will accelerate our goal to become one of America's best cities and on a practical front, will transform the resiliency of our City, should another super storm hit - tick, tock.  We need incentives on this front and while the NJ DEP might be offering municipal financial support to those who take the initiative to implement GI, Jersey City also needs to come up with local incentives to make this happen.  What about a GREEN SCORE, that is mapped to Abatements ?  Developers get rewarded for integrating greener, energy efficient building and green infrastructure attributes into their designs - or else they are not eligible for higher level Abatement awards - this is probably contentious :-) but other cities are doing it.

Lastly, IF our Economic Development Strategic Plan is to deliver on Social & Environmental Priorities, expressed by an array of community stakeholders, then certainly the opportunity to job train for Greener Building Retrofits (we have a built-in inventory, of old and now new construction, that do not meet industry best practices), GI service sector and other Green Economy Jobs, can be low hanging fruit for the Mayor's Innovation Team.  They are working really hard to connect the dots and deliver on new programs and activities that stimulate economic growth for JC - is it that Green Infrastructure is hiding in plain sight (old joke) ?

With a focus on revitalizing our commercial districts, let's not only think about marketing models and incentives that empower small businesses (both important), but let's ALSO consider the opportunity to create some synergistic returns on our investment in these footprints - yes build, yes bring in new business investment AND yes, let us create greener corridors to live and work in Jersey City.  These are NOT mutually exclusive goals.

We've already published lots about what's going on in our region - Philly, Camden, Hoboken, NYC, etal.  Here's what's going on in Europe -

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056166/madrid-is-covering-itself-in-plants-to-help-fight-rising-temperatures

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/france-green-roofs-law-solar-panels-20150819