One of the main reasons that I started the store was to be a vehicle to bring positive change in the world. We were on the forefront of environmental information and products and introduced Fair Trade Certified products to the Edmonton market.

This Green Acts Reward recipients for September and October 2012 has to do with personal security, respect and health. There are several issues that can get me upset: rape, pedophilia, human trafficking and slavery (labour and sex trade) are way up on my list. Ergo the latest list that we have for our Green Acts Reward recipients.

UN.GIFT

The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) was conceived to promote the global fight on human trafficking, on the basis of international agreements reached at the UN. To date, 140 parties have signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons especially Women and Children, which supplements the Palermo Convention against transnational organized crime.

www.ungift.org

Walk With Me

Walk With Me Canada Victim Services is a survivor- led organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing education on issues of slavery, delivering and coordinating services supporting "victims to become survivors" and advocating action for change.

www.walk-with-me.org

Spread the Net

Spread the Net (STN) is a grassroots campaign designed to motivate, educate and inspire Canadians to help end preventable malaria deaths by raising funds and awareness to support the purchase and distribution of bed nets to children and families in Africa.

www.spreadthenet.org

An Explanation of the Green Acts Rewards is given below:

Earth’s General Store has launched a programme to reward their customers when they do green acts and provides them the opportunity to pay their reward forward. When a customer refills their own container, brings their own shopping bags, or green commutes to or from the store using active transportation they will receive a token that they can use to support a non-profit organisation.

“Earth’s General Store promotes people doing small but significant acts that will make a large positive difference in the world. This latest programme will provide a ‘reward’ to customers that make green acts, allow them to pass on the reward to organisations that are doing good work in the world, and the ripple effect will cause a further knock-on”, says storeowner Michael Kalmanovitch.

When a person comes into the store and brings their own bag they will be given a token that they can deposit in a receptacle. The token will represent an amount of money and each receptacle will represent an organisation. At month’s end the tokens will be counted and the corresponding money will be donated to that organisation (an example is given below).

“It has taken our society a long time to get into the situation we are in today and it will take awhile for us to learn new and healthier behaviours. The intention of this programme is to support and reward people doing small acts that will help heal our society and the planet,” continues Mr. Kalmanovitch.

For more information please contact Michael Kalmanovitch at 780-439-8725.

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An example of how it would work: a person that walks to the store, refills a laundry liquid container & a spice jar, and then put all of their purchases in their own bag when they have paid for the products will be given one green token, two red tokens and one yellow token. Before they leave the store the person would deposit the tokens in one of three receptacles – each receptacle represents one of three non-profit organisations. At the months end we will empty out the containers and send those organisations the appropriate funds. In addition to the funds donated through our customers Earth’s General Store will donate a base amount of $50CDN to each organisation.

Each coloured token will represent a different green act:

• Yellow token each time bring your own shopping bag
• Red token you refill a container (refilling laundry liquid, maple syrup, etc)
• You will get a green token when you transport yourself to or from the store by some form of active transportation (bus, bicycle, foot, in-line skate, etc.)

Each coloured token will represent a different monetary value:

• Yellow – 2 cents
• Red – 5 cents
• Green – 10 cents

- Posted September 6th, 2012