Earth Day 2010 Cool Your Bike Workshop, sponsored by Momentum
If there were any party in the world worthy of celebrating Earth Day’s 40th anniversary (and more importantly, the roughly 4.6 billionth anniversary of our amazing planet), it would have been Greennovate’s DIY Earth Day event last night. Simply put, it was awesome.
The night started on a relatively calm note, with visitors checking out our office to learn how to become an environmental trainer and speak their “green voice” (in exchange for a free cupcake, donated kindly by Sweet Ever After). We’ll be making a video out of the best responses – check back in a week or so!
Volunteers Oliver and Flora Listen to Green Voices, Young and Old
Next up was the Rooftop Organic Garden. We cannot express how thankful we are for Martin and Shirley at Organic Farm, who were kind enough to donate organic vegetables, soil, expertise, and hard labor to help us turn our rooftop into a vibrant garden. Combine a DIY planting activity with a free BBQ on the roof, and you won’t be surprised that we had trouble convincing everyone to go back down to the courtyard for the main event…
A Young Chinese Students Plants Spring Onion on the Roof
Our green design interns did not let us (or our 300 visitors) down. They had worked long and hard to turn used banners into beautiful designer products, including bags, hoods, and aprons. But this was no ordinary fashion show…we were honored to have the Fanye dance troupe display our “RE” products while tap dancing! Thanks guys!
Fanye Tap Dancers Sport our Interns' RE Products
But, let’s not forget about the “Cool Your Bike” workshop. Momentum, a subset of GIANT and our most generous sponsor, was awesome enough to donate several bikes for the event. We invited four Chinese student artists to turn the bikes into works of art. Again, we were not let down. Words cannot express this display of talent, so I’ll let this photo do the job:
The Winning Cool Bike
After selecting the best bike design and presenting the artist with two free nights at the luxurious Double Tree Hilton Hotel in Kunshan (thanks Double Tree!), it seemed almost as if the best was still to come. Jammala, a local West African-style drumming group (joined with a surprise appearance of Zimbabwean master Dingiswayo Juma), beat their djembes late into the night to conclude Greennovate’s 3rd annual Earth Day event.
Jammala, Masters of the Djembe
In addition to Momentum, Organic Farm, and Jammala, we’d also like to thank our sponsors Interface Flor, Shanghai Community International School (Lower Pudong Campus), Ren Ai International Patient Center, Pamir Law Group, DSM, Sherpa’s, Sweet Ever After, Double Tree Hilton, Kaiba, China Bridge International, and Shanghai Expat – without the help of whom this event would not have been possible.
Oh yeah, we would also like to thank Earth for not raining on us and completely ruining our event. Happy Birthday, Earth.
Hope to see you all next year! For more Earth Day 2010 photos, click here.
