Victoria Scanlan Stefanakos is a wife and mother, a homesteader, a writer. When she’s not gardening or cooking or picking up wooden toys, she writes stories for national magazines and Web sites about living simply, naturally and well. You can read several of late in Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple.
So Victoria and her family to live lightly and pitch in: growing, making, putting by, selling and sustaining themselves with whatever they can on seven rugged acres. You can follow her chronicle of their adventure at Project Homestead
Lauren Mangion is a writer, engaged citizen, and an eco-coach from Calgary, Canada. Lauren’s personal life and work are intimately intertwined, both being experiments in more sustainable, lower-footprint urban living.
Through Conscious Home, an eco-coaching service, Lauren educates and inspires her fellow Calgarians with tools and resources toward reducing the individual ecological footprint.
Denise founded, designed and manages a national childbirth education program and movement called BornClear — empowering scores of women and couples. Preparing them for the ‘new addition.’ Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Vogue and NBC's Today Show to name a few. Her clients include: Google, Ogilvy&Mather, Conde Nast, Credit Suisse, Citibank, BBC, Tishman Speyers.
Her first book will be out in early 2009 with Wiley Publishing.
Latham is the founder of a boutique holistic lifestyle practice called- Tender Shoots Wellness. Specializing in maternal and child wellness, Latham served as Program coordinator for the Healthy Moms-Healthy Babies project for the B-Healthy organization. She has been featured on Fox 5 news as an expert on organic foods and kid’s health. She is the co-founder of Panela Productions, a company that educates parents and children about food, through cooking classes, and events.
Latham teaches plant-based culinary classes at Whole Foods Market and Natural Kitchen Cooking School, where she is a part of the guest faculty, and for a host of private clients. She gives lectures on plant based nutrition at Laughing Lotus Yoga Center, North American Vegetarian Society's Summer Fest, and Excellence Charter School, to name a few.
She currently teaches prenatal yoga classes at Om Factory, Golden Bridge Yoga, and Yoga Sutra.
Latham contributes to Working Mother Magazine, Naturally Savvy, and Yoga Mom Magazine.
A freelance writer specializing in environmental and health topics, Linda recently was part of a core team of writers who developed content for GreenYour, a website devoted to greener living.
She wrote an environmental column for five years for Good Housekeeping magazine called Green Watch. You can find her articles in Plenty Magazine’s online newsletter, Fit Pregnancy, Good Housekeeping, Arthritis Today, Profiles (Continental Airline’s in-flight magazine), and Microsoft’s Encarta.
She served on her town’s environmental commission for 15 years and remains an active volunteer. Her personal essay column for the local newspaper offers her take on the natural world and on environmental topics in her neck of the woods.
Lynn Fantom’s commitment to eco-travel is in direct proportion to her passion for Acadia National Park in Maine, where she hikes, climbs, bikes, and kayaks with her daughter Luisa. Lynn is publisher of OUR ACADIA. a Web site devoted to exploring, eating, and relaxing on Mount Desert Island.
Lynn posts on www.mdislander.com range from where to find great lobster rolls to what to do with kids on rainy days.
When not in Maine, Lynn lives in New York City, where she is an executive in the media industry. In 2008 her company was named one of the Best Places to Work in New York City in Crain’s New York Business.
Loretta White is a writer, educator and scholar who gained huge diversity of experience within varied industries; energy, government, high tech and more. The last fifteen years she brokered deals with the top multinational companies globally, her Rainmaker skills are unsurpassed and she remains an authority on BD, BI, sustainability and the Global Marketplace.
Frugality was the voice of her elders who endured wars, rationing and Depression, raised to respect, love and to co-exist with nature through sustainability, self reliance, need and RRR practices. Loretta’s juxtaposition of ideas, deep love for the planet and her Yankee sensibilities are the foundation of a lifestyle that is in partnership with nature. Loretta indulges her passions for renewable energy, organics and being green on her 17.5 acre farm in central Massachusetts.
Recently Ms. White has lead an Assoc. of Caregivers providing support to those caring for parents, disabled, and others.
Loretta is invested in the community of our species and our planet and her diverse background in technology and green living gives her a unique perspective on how to live with nature and with our own gifts of technology.
Ms. White’s work has been published by Corporations, magazines, readers digest and many others.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
Marie Oser is a best-selling author, columnist, and host/producer of VEG TV. A vegan lifestyle expert, and environmental advocate with a focus on nutrition and its role in disease prevention, Oser specializes in creating original gourmet recipes with a solid nutritional bottom line.
Many prominent medical and nutrition professionals endorse her work, including Dr. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and principal researcher of the groundbreaking CHINA STUDY, and Neal Barnard, M.D. founder and president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC.
Marie is president of VEGTV, Inc., a video production company producing content for TV and new media. VEGTV streams hundreds of lifestyle videos to more than 1,000 sites globally. In her role as Director of Product Development at Smart Planet Kitchen, she has created, Marie Oser’s Lean & Green, a new line of vegan and Fair Trade Certified products. Marie has appeared on CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, QVC, WUSA, WNBC, KCAL, KOVR, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), FINE LIVING, TECH TV, and Discovery Channel.
Vegetarian since 1971; vegan since 1990, Marie left a career in TV advertising to pursue her interest in food, health, and nutrition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University. Marie is a gourmet cook and organic gardener living in California, writing her 5th book and hiking every day with Travis, her Yellow Lab companion.
Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
As summer nears, many parents are struggling with decisions about what to do with their kids to keep them busy.
Summer camp brings fond memories of chasing toads, climbing trees, catching worms, eating “mystery meals” in the mess hall and drinking “bug juice”.
This experience of just playing in the dirt out in nature really helps to shape children into environmentally responsible people, according to a Cornell University study. The study showed that children who participated in “wild” outdoor activities such as camping, hiking, playing in the woods, were more likely to have a visceral connection to the environment and more environmentally friendly attitudes as adults.
Richard Louv, co-founder of the Children & Nature Network coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” in his 2005 national bestseller, Last Child in the Woods (Algonquin Books). He links a lack of nature experiences to rises in childhood obesity, attention disorders, and depression.
His call to bring children back into the fold of nature is “a call to nurture and protect the spiritual lives of children and adults and ultimately protect the natural world”.
So if you want to gift your child the opportunity this summer to step away from the monkey bars and the concrete jungle and kick of her Converse and climb a tree like a monkey, why not check out some outstanding options for sustainable summer camp.
Camp has always been a place for children to connect with nature. Now with the push being towards sustainability and green living, children can also learn how to keep the earth green at camps that build “green” principals into their programing and facilities.
At summer camp, Earth Day is every day and these camps hold environmental stewardship as central to their respective philosophies.
Briar Bush Nature Center- Abington, PA
At Briar Bush Nature Center, campers as young as 2 years old can participate in outdoor education activities. The Eco-Kids in Action! Program allows campers to see how their actions affect the world around them.
In this weekly program 2nd-3rd grade students take field trips to wind farms, paper recycling centers, and learn about renewable energy, and water conservation. Visit them online- www.briarbush.org Pennsylvania Resources Council- Eastern, PA
In the Wildlife Detectives program at Pennsylvania Resources Council kids discover wildlife and practice identification of species. In their Earth Action Squad day program campers become environmental scientists for a week, participating in organic gardening, learning about alternative energy, and what water testing can tell us about the health of an ecosystem.
To learn more, visit them online- www.prc.org
IslandWood- Bainbridge Island, WA
Bainbridge Island, Washington’s IslandWood offers a wide range of sleepaway and day programs throughout the year for everyone from young children to grad students and adults.
The beautiful, 255-acre outdoor learning center offers enrichment in environmental sciences and the arts together with a strong commitment to sustainability education and fun. Explore their tree house, which overlooks a bog, one of six natural elements in the camp watershed.
Visit them online- www.islandwood.org
Gwynn Valley Summer Camp- Brevard, NC
Marketing themselves as an Eco-friendly Kids camp, Gwynn Valley has been using high efficiency lighting in over half their cabins, which are run from batteries for over 10 years. Installing water-saver shower heads that use only 2 gallons per minute, saving up to 40% in water and heated water usage. Using compact fluorescent lights throughout our program for over 5 years.
They also compost their kitchen waste and grow much of their food onsite. Their activities include farming, horseback riding, outdoor living skills, pioneer crafts, sports, nature hikes and more.
Visit them online- www.gwynnvalley.com
Now that you have an idea of what types of camps are out there you need to make sure you ask the right questions so that your child makes the best out of the camp experience.
Here are 5 questions to ask the camp directors when deciding on where to send your child.
How does your program incorporate green living principals and teach sustainability education? These days it’s just not enough to offer pretty scenery and a break from city living, with the issues our planet faces its important for kids to learn through practice.
Ask if they have water and energy conservation programs, if they have recycling and composting onsite. If the camp isn’t really walking their talk, it will be hard for campers to do so.
Do you have a policy on electronic devices? While its not necessary to completely forbid electronics, most camps do have a ban on them. It can be distracting when campers are text messaging friends or playing handheld video games.
What type of meal options are available and where does the food come from? Those of us who went to camp remember how bad the mushy french toast was, detested the clumpy macaroni and we wouldn’t dare touch the meat loaf.
Fortunately for our kids, many camps have come a long way and have incorporated local, seasonal, organic produce, some having grown on site. Whole grains, leafy greens, and low sugar should be on the list of top priorities.
How much unstructured time do children have? With kids being so over scheduled these days its nice for them to have some time to explore the outdoors on their own. There needs to be a balance between free play and scheduled activities.
What are you all doing to reduce your carbon footprint? Look to see in what ways the camp is working to become completely green.
If you need assistance filtering through all the camps that are out there, check out Choice Camps, a Boston-based summer camp and youth travel referral service.
They have launched a great resource for parents; www.ChoiceCamps.com, a website designed to improve the way families find summer camps and teen travel programs online.
I received this web site from a therapist who recomend this camp for my son who is adhd.I would like to get contact infomation,or someone to get in contact with me. thank you
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I’ve used Choice Camps! Very helpful and free!
G.
I received this web site from a therapist who recomend this camp for my son who is adhd.I would like to get contact infomation,or someone to get in contact with me. thank you