Another year has passed and I have just finished off sending donations to the last recipients of the Green Acts Rewards programme that we do at Earth’s General Store.

To remind people what the Green Acts Rewards programme is here is an overview:

Earth’s General Store has launched a programme to reward their customers when they do green acts and provides them the opportunity to donate their reward to a choice of three different non-government organisation (NGO) or any organisation that is doing good work in the world.

When a customer refills their own container, brings their own shopping bags, or 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 collective positive difference in the world. This 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 the end of a period (two months) 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.

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.

Earth’s General Store will add $50 to each organisation in addition to the money generated through the positive actions of their customers.

 

		Yellow	Red	Green
Jan & Feb 2012	Equality Effects	769	318	128	$44.08
Jan & Feb 2012	Avega	581	321	187	$46.37
Jan & Feb 2012	Equality Trust	288	189	58	$21.01
		1638	828	373	$261.46
March & Apr 2012	Alberta NDP	378	188	152	$32.16
March & Apr 2012	alberta party	137	53	96	$14.99
March & Apr 2012	Green Party of Alberta	142	89	128	$20.09
		657	330	376	$217.24
May & June 2012	Canadian Biotechnology Action Network	510	295	160	$40.95
May & June 2012	David Suzuki Foundation	630	380	240	$55.60
May & June 2012	Rabble	240	180	130	$26.80
		1380	855	530	$273.35
July & August 2012	Kusumala Institute of Agriculture & Ecology	330	216	129	$30.30
July & August 2012	Badilisha Eco Village Foundation	514	320	170	$43.28
July & August 2012	Ghana Permaculture Network	420	145	200	$35.65
		1264	681	499	$259.23
September & October 2012	Spread the Net	350	199	130	$29.95
September & October 2012	UN.Gift	484	282	166	$40.38
September & October 2012	Walk with Me	517	292	144	$39.34
		1351	773	440	$259.67
November & December 2012	Canadian Engaged Buddhism Association	537	322	68	$33.64
November & December 2012	VegFam	515	307	109	$36.55
November & December 2012	Back Pack Health Worker Team	545	130	250	$42.40
		1597	759	427	$262.59
		Yellow	Red	Green
	Yearly Totals	7887	4226	2645
				Total $	$1,533.54

So as you can see we donated, in response to all the Green Acts that our customers did over the past 12 months, over $1,500. Good going everyone.

I want to challenge each and everyone one of you. We should be able to double this total in 2013. That means more of you please bring your own shopping bags, your own containers to refill use green transportation when you come or go fro the store.

I think this is quite doable – do you?

- posted January 29th, 2013