E4S (Entrepreneurs for Sustainability) will hold 3 presentations
Advanced Energy: Powering the 3 P’s (People, Planet & Profit)

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E4S Second Wednesday Akron Network Event
Wednesday, September 14th – 5:30- 8:30
Location: Musica (Directions)
Price: Free
Display Table: Contact Grace@e4s.org
Register for this event

Akron carries a rich research and commercialization legacy in advanced energy materials development, energy systems, and manufacturing.  As the world embraces advanced energy solutions, the work of local professionals in this field grows exponentially.  Learn more about these innovative technologies and practices from content experts at work in the greater Akron market.  Where are the opportunities for Akron’s skilled workforce?  How does the adoption of advanced energy products and services impact the triple bottom line of an organization or business? Find out on Wednesday September 14th at the next E4S Akron Network Event.

Presentations by:

Dovetail Solar - Renewable energy technology implementation

GreenStreet Solutions- Efficiency measures for home and business

Megajoule Storage – Innovative energy storage solutions

Register Today!

NEXT EVENTS:

September 20
Tuesday
5:30pm – 8:30pm
Great Lakes Brewing Company Tasting Room
October 12
Wednesday
9:00am – 2:00pm
Cuyahoga County Solid Waste Management District Headquarters

Michael Peck profile

September 8, 2011, Press Release:
Green Job catalyst Michael Peck to speak at Grey to Green Festival Sept. 10 in Youngstown

Michael Peck’s bio here as WORD doc     as webpage

Good paying union jobs in the growing solar energy and wind power economy are being created in Ohio with cooperation from the Mondragon co-operative network in Spain. Michael Peck, US delegate of Mondragon, will share the excitement of these efforts at the fourth annual Grey to Green Festival, speaking at the Opening Ceremony on Saturday, September 10th, Wick Park Pavilion in Youngstown at 12:10 and leading a workshop at 1:30-2:45.

For the past decade, Michael has served as the first North American delegate for Mondragon, the world’s largest worker-industrial cooperative network.
Starting in late 2009, Michael has helped to engineer a partnership between Mondragon and the United Steelworkers Union to create next generation jobs opportunities involving worker empowerment and ownership under a hybrid union-coop model. In July, 2011, Michael was appointed Chairman of Isofoton North America, a leading Spanish Photovoltaics cell & module manufacturer. Isofoton will supply modules to the nation’s largest PV plant (49.9MW) east of the Rockies, sited on reclaimed mine lands in rural Appalachia in Noble County, Ohio, to be owned by a leading investor-owned utility and will construct a new PV assembly facility in Napoleon, Ohio, that will create up to 330 direct manufacturing jobs plus hundreds of indirect jobs with local contractors.

Ohio has the opportunity to make a “giant leap forward” building on steady growth of interest and support for worker owned cooperatives. The Cooperative Development Center at Kent State University, in conjunction with the the Cleveland Foundation has helped foster the growth of the Evergreen co-op network in the University Park area of Cleveland and the EEOC and CDC at Kent have assisted Potters Wheel & Beatitude House with the Beatitude House Green Clean cooperative and the start-up of the Lake-To-River Food Cooperative, both centered in Youngstown. Michael will present his model as a way to combine worker ownership with promising new technologies and cooperate with steelworker unions. This model has much to offer in a regional economy that seems at present to be providing mainly low paying entry level jobs. A Vindicator July 13 article noted that while the Mahoning Valley has seen new job growth, it ranked 90th out of 100 metro areas in green job creation.

Previously, working in Pennsylvania on a bipartisan basis during the 2002-2004, Michael was instrumental in bringing a leading global wind turbine manufacturer to the Commonwealth in 2005. The company since has invested over $220 million in two factories, one headquarters office, one central administration office, and multiple wind farms, and has created 900 in-state direct good and green jobs, and hundreds of indirect jobs with local contractors. With Michael’s direct involvement this was the first overseas wind turbine manufacturer to start building in the U.S., the first to sign and embrace an award-winning, progressive relationship with organized Labor (the United Steelworkers Union), the first to transform an abandoned brownfield industrial site into a green energy manufacturing hub, the first to achieve upwards of 65% domestic content, and the first to undertake a R&D partnership with a major U.S. defense aerospace & shipbuilding prime contractor (Newport News Shipbuilding) to develop and build next generation off-shore wind turbines “made in the USA”.

Contact: Jim Converse, Coordinating Team, Grey to Green Festival Also on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GreytoGreenfestival
Regional Development Common Wealth, Inc. 330.518.6971

Don’t trash it! Drop it & shop for free!

comments ( 0 )
September 4, 2011 posted by susieb

Don’t trash it! Drop it & shop for free!

Facebook Event here

Please bring items 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. to allow time for distribution.

Bring unwanted but usable/working household items. Take items you need. It’s a fast, easy and free way to get rid of stuff or get stuff you need. Plus, you’ll help your environment by saving landfill space and natural resources.

Examples of Items to Bring:

  • Any usable/working, non-hazardous household items
  • Baby items
  • Bedding
  • Canned goods
  • Clothing, shoes and accessories
  • Curtains
  • First-aid items
  • Kids’ toys, clothes and shoes
  • Knick-knacks
  • Kitchen items
  • Luggage
  • Paper & plastic products
  • Tableware plates/dishes & silverware & glasses
  • Toiletries-unused/new — any size
  • Tupperware

Don’t Bring:

    • Chemicals
    • Computers & electronics
    • Gas cans
    • Hazardous items
    • Hospital, water or sofa beds
    • Hot water tanks
    • Paint
    • Pianos/organs
    • Scrap metal
    • Solvents
    • Tires
    • Trash/junk

For information on donation/safe disposal call re:CREATE (330) 941-2238.

DOWNLOAD this list as a WORD doc here

Press Release sent to Youngstown City Schools:

Four Youngstown City School’s gardening projects will be highlighted in a display titled,” Horticultural Happenings in Youngstown City Schools ”, at the upcoming Grey to Green Festival.  The festival, which takes place on Saturday, September 10, 2011 in Wick Park, on Youngstown’s Northside, runs from 10 am to 5 pm.  The participating schools: Paul C. Bunn Elementary, McGuffey Elementary, Volney Rogers Middle School, and Martin Luther King Elementary will have photo displays, handouts, and produce available for public viewing and sampling.  Children visiting the tables will be treated to a series of fun and eco-friendly, hands-on activities, using junk mail, grocery bags, and bottle caps to make up-cycled crafts and games.  The Grey to Green Festival, now in its 4th year, will feature workshops, an essay contest, entertainment, green vendors, kid’s activities, and food located at the Northside Farmer’s Market.

For more information about the gardening projects, please contact the individual schools.

Download as a WORD doc here

Grey To Green now has nearly 70 vendors/exhibitors!  Today’s Farmer’s Market was booming with Grey to Green conversation – all with a great backdrop of labor and justice songs by the “Grievance Man for the World,” Mike Stout.

This afternoon organizers sketched a layout for the festival in Wick Park, with spaces laid out for the Green Mother’s tent, Kids’ activities tent, Nature Tent, Neighbors tent, Vendor tents, Alpacas area (still have that possibility of the baby alpaca!), Drop and Shop/ GreenTeam/Yo Litter tent, Youngstown Facebook Garage Sale tent, etc., etc. and buskers and entertainment and education and, and, whew…


And that doesn’t even count all the GREAT farmers, bakers, cooks, herbalists and canners and sale items and etc. etc. who will be over at the Farmer’s Market section of the Festival – remember, that’s where ALL THE FOOD will be!

Join us next Saturday in Solidarity to learn, to experience, to eat and drink, to appreciate art and crafts and enjoy our COMMUNITY!
P.S.  Attention Vendors & Exhibitors, you should have received a copy of Vendor Instructions but they are also downloadable here >> as a PDF

IF YOU have already signed up here> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=104009839704210 then you are already good to go!!!

Become a Composter! An hour workshop about composting with Kim Lewis and a composter to take home. $10 for Mahoning County residents. 30 lucky participants!

If you say that you are attending, I will put you on the list. On Sat. Sept. 10 at 10:50 ish, you will come to UUYO’s Channing Hall, check in, pay the $10 bucks and begin (or continue) your composting journey!
Susie Beiersdorfer is organizing the event. Please email us at:
greytogreenfestival@gmail.com
We have 7 sign ups already! You pre-register and pay the $10 at the door. We will meet in Channing Hall down the patio steps on the north side of the UUYO (There will be a sign). This is the 3rd year that GreenTeam has conducted a compost workshop at the Grey to Green Festival!
from Susie: “I have been a laid-back composter for a decade now and the compost material has helped my garden flourish, not to mention all the food and yard waste kept out of the waste stream. About a year ago I started vermicomposting (worms) and that is very rewarding also! I haven’t harvested any of the compost but the ‘worm tea’ that is created is a wonderful fertilizer for my plants! Happy Composting!”

DOWNLOAD INFO SHEET: http://www.greytogreenfestival.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/North-Side-Market-2011.pdf

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http://www.greytogreenfestival.org/ MORE INFO
http://www.facebook.com/GreytoGreenfestival FACEBOOk PAGE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=257392477616067 EVENT Page

Dr. Myers promo - presenting at Grey To Green

Robert Myers, Ph.D. (Lock Haven University), will speak in Channing Hall at the First Unitarian Church of Youngstown across from Wick Park, on the environmental dangers of hydro-fracking the Marcellus shale by the gas industry in Pennsylvania.

Professor Myers: “Over the past four years, I have watched the hydro-fracturing industry rapidly expand into central Pennsylvania, and I have been disturbed by the consequences. The state forests, where generations of Pennsylvanians have hunted, fished, and hiked, have been defaced by a growing network of well pads. But even more disturbing are the effects that we can’t see. Unknown chemicals are being pumped thousands of feet underground. The extreme pressures involved in the hydro-fracturing process are forcing methane gas into people’s homes and into their water supplies. Thousands of gallons of chemicals have been spilled in our forests and streams. It’s clear to me that hydro-fracturing is the single biggest environmental threat to Pennsylvania that this generation faces.”

The talk will attempt to sort through conflicting claims in order to present objectively the facts on the effects of hydro-fracturing and to provide thorough documentation for every claim. He has spoken on this issue to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioner’s National Conference, the Penn State Marcellus Shale Law Symposium, the Sustainable Energy Fund Green Bag Lunch Series, and the EPIC Frac Event.

Prof. Myers will ALSO speak at the Wick Park Pavilion in the park across the street from the Unitarian Church at 3 pm; he will also field questions at the Frack Info Table next to the ArtisteLynn booth in between talks as time allows until 5 pm.

Bio here: http://www.lhup.edu/rmyers3/
Professor Myers has a PhD in English from the Pennsylvania State University, and since 1999 he has taught at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, where he is a Professor of English, and Director of the Environmental Studies Program. He has been researching the environmental effects of hydro-fracking since 2007 and has presented his work in his website “The Environmental Dangers of Hydro-Fracking the Marcellus Shale” (http://www.lhup.edu/rmyers3/marcellus.htm) as well as through many speaking engagements (listed on the website).

These presentations are part of the 4th Annual Grey To Green Festival > SEE MORE Fest here: http://www.facebook.com/GreytoGreenfestival

An issue of  the journal The Hemlock was dedicated to gas shale, here: Volume 2, Issue 6 (March 2009) of  The Hemlock at:
http://www.lhup.edu/hemlock/Hemlock2.6.htm

Michael Peck, green job catalyst, biograph

comments ( 1 )
September 2, 2011 posted by susieb

Michael Peck to speak at Grey to Green Festival Sept. 10 in Youngstown http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=286593994689082

Michael Peck founded MAPA Group ( www.mapagroup.net ) in 1994 as a creative and transactional business development consulting practice with operations in Washington DC, Atlanta, Georgia, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Barcelona and Madrid, Spain.  Michael serves as a volunteer advisory board member of the Apollo Alliance, the Blue Green Alliance, and the American Sustainable Business Council, as well as on the Wind Energy Foundation board.   For the past decade, Michael has served as the first North American delegate for Mondragon, the world’s largest worker-industrial cooperative. Starting in late 2009, Michael has helped to engineer a partnership between Mondragon and the United Steelworkers Union to create next generation jobs opportunities involving worker empowerment and ownership under a hybrid union-coop model.

In July, 2011, Michael was appointed Chairman of Isofoton North America, a leading Spanish PV cell & module manufacturer.  Isofoton will supply modules to the nation’s largest PV plant (49.9MW) east of the Rockies, sited on reclaimed mine lands in rural Appalachia in Noble County, Ohio, to be owned by a leading investor-owned utility and will construct a new PV assembly facility in Napoleon, Ohio, that will create up to 330 direct manufacturing jobs plus hundreds of indirect jobs with local contractors. Previously, working closely with Pennsylvania’s Administration and Legislature on a bipartisan basis during the 2002-2004 timeframe, Michael was instrumental in bringing the leading global wind turbine manufacturer and developer, Gamesa, to the Commonwealth in 2005 where the company since has invested over $220 million in two factories, one headquarters office, one central administration office, and multiple wind farms, and has created 900 in-state direct good and green jobs, and hundreds of indirect jobs with local contractors.  Over the 2004-2010 period, Gamesa achieved a number of firsts with Michael’s direct involvement: the first overseas wind turbine manufacturer to start building in the U.S., the first to sign and embrace an award-winning, progressive relationship with organized Labor (the United Steelworkers Union), the first to transform an abandoned brownfield industrial site into a green energy manufacturing hub, the first to achieve upwards of 65% domestic content, and the first to undertake a R&D partnership with a major U.S. defense aerospace & shipbuilding prime contractor (Newport News Shipbuilding) to develop and build next generation off-shore wind turbines “made in the USA”.  Candidate and President Obama has visited Gamesa’s Fairless Hills facilities twice.

Prior to forming MAPA Group, Michael served as a naval officer on active duty from 1976 –83, winning the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe Leadership award in 1981, and completed his service as a Commander in the Naval Reserves in 1996. Michael also served as a defense and economic development assistant to the U.S. Senate Minority Leader (1984-86), as Executive Assistant to the President of the BDM Corporation (1986-88), and as a Senior Vice President for corporate business development at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) from 1988-94, the nation’s largest employee-owned R&D company at the time.”

Announcing the First Annual “Grey to Green” Essay Writing Competition 2011

Sponsored by Coordinating Team – 4th Annual Grey to Green Festival

September 10, 2011

Wick Park, Youngstown, Ohio


DOWNLOAD Complete Essay Competition Rules and Deadlines HERE

Have you ever thought about ways to help the Mahoning Valley become more earth-friendly?  Our theme is Toward 2020: How can the Mahoning Valley become more earth-friendly –who will help do it? Youngstown has gained national and international recognition as a city that has embraced the reality of being a shrinking city.  Aware we will not grow in numbers, we work to improve the quality of life as a smaller place.  Shrinking the physical footprint of the city offers many opportunities for building a greener economy.

We are offering prizes for various writers at many levels. This will include prizes given that day and follow-up prizes awarded at next year’s event for those who carry out the action(s) they describe in their essay.  Many people can write inspiring essays for making our community more earth-friendly.  Maybe you plan to organize a “walk to school” rally on Earth Day, or have a plan to raise money for a bike path in your town, or maybe you’re an architectural student planning to incorporate green building ideas into your designs.  Maybe you can cut back to one car if you have more than one, or organize days to ride together some days or promote local food in your school cafeteria or go paperless. Or, install energy efficient heating, power or cooling at your home, business or company. A lot of small changes can add up to a big change as a region.  Anyone who cares about the environment and can back it up with a great essay about their commitment to action has a chance to be a winner of the First Grey to Green Essay Contest (2011).

Topic: Who Cares? My Personal Commitment to Action for Sustainable Living


Deadline: Entries must be received no later than 5:00 PM ET on September 7, 2011.


There is a Grand Prize of $300, a Great Prize of $200, and 10 Outstanding Prizes of $100 for each of the 10 categories.  Awards of $150, $100 and $50 for each category with a peck of local apples will be given at the festival on Sept. 10 at 12:50 PM and the other portion will be awarded at the 2012 Festival to those who carry out their plans and submit a brief statement, photo, news story, etc. about what you did during the year to carry out an environmentally helpful commitment.


DOWNLOAD  Complete  Essay  Competition  Rules and  Deadlines  HERE

Printable posters to download are available here, help yourself and feel free to share share widely: