GreenLife Eco-Fest: A Northern CA Treat!

Here at Autonomie Project, we are gearing up for a really exciting festival. The GreenLife Eco-Fest is a two-day weekend festival nestled in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Foothills in Northern California (about 2.5 hours from San Francisco).  We are especially excited about this one, as a lot of big names are attached to speak and one of our founders, Gina, hails from the foothills.  Having this big of a festival in the small, but quaint town of Grass Valley is really great, especially since it is a zero waste celebration of all things green! 

As we mentioned, there are some big name speakers coming that we can’t wait to hear. Some we are most looking forward to include John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution, Michael A Bedar  producer of the film, Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, Allison Cook of the Story of Stuff, and Dr. Kevin Danaher co-founder of Global Exchange/Green Festivals and writer of Building the Green Economy : Success Stories From the Grassroots. And on top of these lovely speakers and more, there is some absolutely great workshops, such as: Growing Mushrooms, Biodynamic Gardening, Natural Building, Green Energy, and Reading GMO Labels.

If that wasn’t enough of a reason to hike up to the foothills, there will also be FREE bike tune-ups given by People Powered Alliance, a clothing swap, and the Haute Trash Fashion Show which is fashion made out of “trash.”  If you love shopping there will also be about 120 green and eco vendors, including yours truly.  And don’t forget about awesome healthy food vendors and music. Really, this festival sounds like one big green party, but not the political kind.

If you are in the area or would like to take a beautiful drive/train ride through the California foothills, come stop by! If you come to our booth, you can check out our NEW products such as eco-friendly, Fair Trade dog toys and leashes and our NEW orange and navy blue sneakers! We promise you won’t regret it. Hope to see you there!

When: Saturday and Sunday, June 23rd & 24th. 10am-7pm with music until 9pm on Saturday

Where: North Star House, Old Auburn Road, Grass Valley, CA

Cost: Free! $5.00 for workshops and $20 for all day speaker pass

Why: Because it’s going to rock!

 

New York Earth Day: Earthfair 2010

To be honest, the start of our New York Earth Day adventures were not looking good.  We spent several long nights at the AP office last week, trying complete all our tasks, send out all  orders and ended up heading out around 9pm, two hours later than expected. Due to some mis-communication with friends, we were left on the streets of Manhattan at about 1am! We dozed off in the car, worried we would be spending the night in a car jam-packed with sneakers in the middle of New York. Somehow, we finally reached our friend and were able to sleep a mere 4 hours before heading over to Grand Central Station.

And this is where the weekend takes an upswing! We were nestled between Grand Central Station and other office buildings on Vanderbilt Ave. We had a lovely booth, including our hot off the press, new sneaker display. Last year we were inside the station, which was great, however, this year we both enjoyed some much needed kisses from the sun. It was great being outside and able to hear the music as well as see the city all around us. Our booth looked great filled with our classic sneakers, Children’s sneakers, Little Green Radicals Children’s line, and our Organic tees. Both days of the event we were really busy, however, Friday proved to be our busiest day, mainly due to commuters. Even though Saturday was a little less busy, we were able to spend some extra time chatting with visitors to the booth and meet all the little ones who came out with their families.

We met a lot of great people and AP fans! We really enjoyed talking to all the New Yorkers, especially the smallest ones. We even met Miz Metro (her entire dress and earrings were made of discarded subway tickets) and a Solar Powered Guitar & Amp man. The reaction we received about our company was very encouraging and we hope people will spread the word. We also were able to roam the festival a bit and came across a few wonderful organizations such as the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary and the New York Botanical Gardens.

As the sun faded between the buildings, we packed up our AP-mobile and headed out of the festival for some fun with friends in Brooklyn and Manhattan, plus some pit stops at our favorite vegan spots: Red Bamboo and Wild Ginger. We were excited to celebrate Earth Day in New York City and hope the message of environmental responsibility and sustainability rang in everyone’s ears. We also want to encourage everyone to continue to live your life with the environment in mind long after Earth Day passes. We thank all those involved for a wonderful festival and look forward to next year’s event: this time we will be sure we plan out sleeping arrangements BEFORE leaving Boston.

To view all the pictures from NY Earth Day 2010, please click on our Facebook Photo Album.

-Team AP