“Before she deployed a cutely animated Internet film to indict the American way of consumption, the environmental activist Annie Leonard had another weapon: her long, brown ponytail. She fastened it high and bouncy, like a cartoon coed. That, plus a crumpled list in her hand and a Valley Girl lilt, was apparently all she needed to get into the dumps, ports, and factories she was investigating on behalf of her then-employer, Greenpeace. Where were Los Angeles’ recyclable plastics ending up? Who was dismantling our toxics-laced computers? “I’m pledging into a sorority?” Leonard would say, “and I need to find these things for a scavenger hunt?” In a pre-9/11 world, the tactic nearly always worked. “They never thought this dumb girl could do them any harm,” she says…”
This morning, I released a video appeal on Facebook and here, on our blog, asking for our community’s financial support of The Story of Stuff Project.
As you know, we’ve always offered our films, curricula, study guides and other resources for free to anyone around the world who wants to download them.
That’s a big part of the reason our Project has been able to reach nearly 10 million people with a compelling message about the impact our production and consumption patterns are having on the planet and on each other.
The thing is, while free content makes for a great educational and organizing model, it’s not so hot from a revenue standpoint!
See, while the content is free, the staff, office, technological infrastructure, creative team and so much more aren’t free. All of those things cost money, which is why I’m writing.
We’ve built an incredible amount of momentum over the past several months: in March, over 400,000 people visited storyofstuff.org; in the last two weeks alone, we’ve logged more than 500,000 views on The Story of Bottled Water, our latest film; we’ve been profiled in USA Today , the Washington Post, and San Francisco Chroni cle; and I’ve appeared on both The Colbert Report and Good Morning America.
We’re raring and ready to go. But we need you to be with us.
Over the coming month, we’re working hard to raise $100,000 from our on-line community to keep the Story of Stuff Project going strong this year.
Distribute our recently released six-week study and action program for young people of faith;
Release our highly anticipated high school level educational curriculum this June;
Distribute two new films over the next six months-The Story of Cosmetics (looking at toxic s in common consumer products) and The Story of Electronics (a case study of planned obsolescence); and
Begin work on a series of new films that will tackle corporate ‘freedom of speech’; credit cards and debt; and the misallocation of subsidies to support old-school, dirty technologies and practices rather than the economy of the future.
There are nearly 100,000 of us on the email list and on our Facebook group alone. If everyone pitched in a couple of bucks, we’d cover our film and curriculum distribution budget-and so much more-for the whole year.
The Story of Stuff Project and GreenFaith are pleased to release Let There Be…Stuff? – a six-session curriculum that helps Christian teenagers explore the relationship between their consumption, their faith, and the health of the planet.
Over the past five years, the pace and scope of religious engagement on the environment has accelerated sharply. Our Project experienced this phenomenon first hand when we released The Story of Stuff in late 2007. Almost immediately, faith leaders started calling and writing to ask if we had produced companion educational programs for churches or other houses of worship. Then last year, we partnered with GreenFaith, an interfaith coalition for the environment, to meet this need.
Thank you for your continued support and stay tuned for the release of our high school curriculum this summer!
If you live in the Inner Sunset in San Francisco, here’s an event you might want to check out this Saturday.
FREE Book Blast, Saturday, April 10th
NW Corner of 6th & Irving
12p – 5p
FREE books, magazines, and even books-on-tape.
From the community organizers:
All items at this first-ever Inner Sunset event will be FREE to all. You are welcome to take away any books, magazines, or books-on-tape that you want!
This is NOT a charity event. This is NOT a swap. There are NO funds raised by this. NO money will be exchanged… It is our neighborhood’s effort to recycle books. It is simply books FROM those who donate, TO those who wish to take them. It is a completely free event, supported by volunteers with our particular Inner Sunset community spirit!
We will be offering kids’ books, encyclopedias, magazines, travel books, paperbacks, cookbooks, books-on-tape, coffee-table books, puzzle books, dictionaries, foreign-language and maps.
Books may be left in a sheltered area AT ANY TIME at 1297 6th Ave/Irving.
Leftover books will be donated to the SF Public Library for their annual fundraiser.
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