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It’s almost Earth Day and we hope you’ll come celebrate with us on Sunday @ EarthFest!

Photo credit: Patrick Farrell (thanks, Patrick!)

Here’s the plan for the new and improved greenerMIAMI – it’s going to be set up as a website with any and every environmental information that pertains to Miami locally. It will be highly organized, and easier to find what you are looking for. We’ll have information and links to all of the local environmental organizations, volunteer opportunities, local events information, tips for your home, how-to guides, recycling information, a more expanded A-Z disposal & donation guide, and more.

I’ve already purchased a year of hosting with some server space ($72). This was not necessary to have before, as Typepad currently hosts for me. Additionally, I’m planning on setting up the site using an Open Source program called Joomla. The good news is that it is free. However, you need a template for your site. There are free Joomla templates, but I’m looking at some nicer, more complete templates that would set us back an additional $50-75.

The hosting and the template are the costs that I’m trying to cover with this fundraising. It would be incredible if we could reach the $150 with your $1 donations. It’s not very sexy sounding, and probably very boring – but it is very necessary to make this change happen.

Today we have raised $10 so far. Thank you so much for your help. I’ll keep you updated of further donation progress and of the donors. Again, thank you for your assistance. Once the new website is up, we hope to cover any further expenses on our own and with support of our sponsors, setting aside a portion for charity programs.

I hope you find this website a resource, and when the new site is up, I hope that you will be overwhelmed with the information available to you. Thanks for your continued support and readership!

It’s going to be a great resource for the local community on anything environmental – and myself and some friendly helpers are doing all of this with our own time and resources…with pleasure.

GreenerMIAMI is happy to offer all of this information free of charge to the public, and create an incredible resource for the community. However, some of these changes will cost money, and I’d like to ask some help. If every person that visits this site could donate just $1, we would be able to cover our expenses.

We hate to ask, but we appreciate any help you can give us. This is not a tax-deductible donation, but it will go to very good use in development of a new greenerMIAMI.com. I’ll be glad to publish the names & websites of the donors if it is desired (anonymous donations are also glady accepted). Additionally, I will publish the total amount raised.

Thank you so much, and if you can, I would greatly appreciate your donation of $1. You may use the donate button on the upper left-hand side of this page, or send money via PayPal to rebecca.e.carter@gmail.com.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! We promise you will be impressed with the results!

As hopefully most readers have noticed, we offer a calendar feature on the right sidebar. We post the info, and it is hosted by Upcoming.org. I’ve created a greenerMIAMI group within that, as an experiment that will hopefully work out. In order to join the group, you will need to create an ID with the site. After that, you can subscribe to the group’s feed, start a discussion (or reply to the one I already started), and of course, join the group. Let’s give it a try and see if we would like to use this as our tool.

Take our new poll: How many KWH/day does your home use?

GreenerMiami is something I’ve been thinking about since the end of last year, slowly putting together my thoughts on the subject. Back in November, I wrote some potential posts for when I lauched the blog. I have delayed so much that the purpose/focus has changed and evolved, but I figure I should go ahead and publish what I had, and then go and update with new posts along the way. So here goes…!

Originally written Nov 1, 2005…

Welcome! GreenerMiami is my latest endeavor – and one I’m really excited about. Inspired by the fact that my condo building in Miami, Florida doesn’t recycle and the daily guilt and disgust that goes along with that, I’ve started this project. Wanting to make a difference locally, educate myself and others at the same time, and all the while document my experience has led me to create this new blog.

In posts to come I will lay out more details about who I am, what I’m about, and what I’m trying to do. Let me try to summarize it here: I hope to become a self-made expert on recycling, and trash in general. I want to learn & see for myself how recycling & waste management works. I want to learn benefits, risks, and problems. I want to get my building along with so many others in the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County to start recycling programs. I want to visit dumps/landfills/recycling centers. It would be awesome to do a ride-along with waste disposal people. I want to interview people in the waste & recycling industry. I want to interview the general public. I want to find ways to make it easier for people to do the right thing. And most of all, I want to know that one person – me – can make a difference.