|
About Us
Greening the Bay Area: Green Challenge 07-09
Northern California’s Green Challenge 07-09 is a robust program of volunteering that will improve the environment, help reverse global warming and help keep the Bay Area's air, water and vegetation healthy.
Family volunteerism is the heart of Green Challenge 07-09. The three-year program is backed by Walt Disney Company and Points of Light Foundation, and led by the Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley in coordination with participating Northern California centers of the Volunteer Center National Network
Actions speak louder than words, and Green Challenge 07-09 combines a series of quarterly enviro-actions to harness the collective power of thousands of volunteers who come from corporations, churches, schools, service organizations, youth groups, non-profits and more.
The projects focus on energy conservation, recycling, pollution reduction and habitat restoration, as family volunteers clean riverbeds; decrease use of gasoline, plastics and harmful chemicals; learn to recycle properly and adopt energy-efficient habits.
Green Challenge 2007 features two main components:
- Four MAJOR ONE-DAY FAMILY VOLUNTEER PROJECTS focused on environmental needs
- A family volunteer recognition celebration on Disney’s National Family Volunteer Day, November 17, 2007, titled WE’VE GOT THE POWER!
All four FAMILY VOLUNTEER PROJECTS will feature tasks that can be completed in a day. For each project, Green Challenge is coordinating with local environmental, community and youth groups.
The first year of green activities will culminate with a major family volunteering celebration event titled WE’VE GOT THE POWER. The celebration, which ties in with National Family Volunteer Day, will educate, galvanize and recognize all Green Challenge volunteers and will include music, food and family-oriented fun. Musical guests already confirmed for the November 17 celebration include recording artists SISTER SLEDGE, the dynamic all-sister group whose disco anthem “We are Family” topped the pop and R&B charts in 1979.
The program’s theme, “Be an Incredible Family,” is based on the blockbuster Disney Pixar film, "The Incredibles,” which features a family of super heroes with super powers. The Green Challenge will draw from the subject of this wildly popular film to celebrate the remarkable power that families of volunteers can generate to effect positive change in areas where they live and work.
The celebration will also include a Family Volunteer Expo, an awards ceremony honoring the Green Challenge volunteers and community partners, photo opps with Disney and Pixar characters and much more!
Green Challenge kicks-off on April 14th with a prototype volunteer project along the Guadalupe River.
The Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network
The Points of Light Foundation & the Volunteer Center National Network engage and mobilize millions of volunteers who are helping to solve serious social problems in thousands of communities. Through a variety of programs and services, the Foundation encourages people from all walks of life — businesses, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, low-income communities, families, youth and older adults — to volunteer.
Based in Washington, D.C., the Foundation advocates community service through a partnership with the Volunteer Center National Network. Together, they reach millions of people in thousands of communities to help mobilize people and resources, which deliver solutions that address community problems.
The Foundation has gained a national reputation as America's Address for Volunteering. As President George W. Bush commented, "The Points of Light Foundation embodies America's spirit of volunteerism and the goodwill network of its citizens."
Volunteer Center (National and Silicon Valley)
The Volunteer Center National Network (VCNN), comprised of 318 local volunteer centers, serves as the national social infrastructure for mobilizing volunteers and resources, finding creative solutions to community needs. The Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley, chair of the Northern Section of Volunteer Centers of California, is the prime clearing house resource in Santa Clara County and the greater Silicon Valley that connects volunteers with community needs and promotes volunteerism. Volunteer Centers are conveners for the community, catalysts for social action and key local resources for volunteer involvement. They bring people and community needs together through a range of programs and services based upon community needs, demographic area, population size, and other factors. These Centers maintain essential and interrelated services and programs that provide a broad and dynamic array of committed community volunteers.
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. Founded on October 16, 1922 by brothers Walt and Roy Disney as a small animation studio, it became one of the largest Hollywood studios and also owns eleven theme parks and several television networks, including the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).
Over the next three years, Walt Disney Company is partnered with the Volunteer Center National Network and Points of Light Foundation in a national educational marketing program to encourage and increase family volunteerism.
In Silicon Valley and the broader San Francisco Bay Area, the focus is environmental stewardship in a campaign called Green Challenge 07-09. Led by Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley, this program will recruit thousands of volunteers from families, corporations, associations and other groups in projects designed to clean-up and improve the environment.
|
1922 The Alameda, Suite 100