Second annual Green Apple Day of Service a global success

Published on: 
October 10, 2013
Author: 
Emily Riordan

This year’s Green Apple Day of Service is behind us, and volunteers at more than 2,000 schools and campuses joined us to make an impact. Projects took place in all 50 U.S. states and 40 countries, with participants showing that their communities are committed to healthy, safe and sustainable schools. Every dot on the map at mygreenapple.org represented a different commitment to better schools and a team effort from start to finish. Team is a word that comes so easily when talking about what we do at USGBC, and it’s one that we try not to take for granted. It's moments like Green Apple Day of Service that remind me that our team is so much more than the people who “officially" work at USGBC. 

Our team is all of my USGBC colleagues, dozens of whom came out to organize and volunteer at local Day of Service events. Friends from LEED, Community, marketing, events, business development, GBCI, advocacy and operations worked with students, teachers and parents to clean up campuses, plant and rejuvenate gardens, teach young people about recycling and resource conservation and more.

It is the volunteers and leadership in 77 USGBC Chapters. Once again, 100 percent of chapters organized events across the U.S., including 99 in the Delaware Valley, more than 50 across Massachusetts and Illinois, and one flagship event right here in DC.

Our team includes our Green Apple partners, who organized events around the world, from Brazil to Brooklyn, Santa Monica to Singapore.

It is the thousands of USGBC member companies and LEED Professionals who participated in service projects around the world, earning LEED Continuing Educations hours while they were at it!

Our team is the group of girls in Bangladesh who painted flower pots and learned to grow their own flowers. It is the mom in the Bay Area who enlisted her teenage daughters to teach the masses about green schools during a San Francisco Giants game. It is school leaders in Missouri who enrolled in a Green Schools Quest, committing to engage their students in recycling, resource conservation, and some healthy competition. The Green Apple Day of Service is all of these students, teachers, families and other individuals who believe that where we learn matters, and who came together this fall to show it.

To learn more about this year's Day of Service, visit mygreenapple.org

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