Poksak is a Rhode Island-based social venture that sells pouchable, reusable tote bags in an effort to fund college scholarships for foster children and raise environmental awareness. This week running Monday, March 15 through Sunday March 21, 2010 Poksak has teamed up with Mothers Acting Up (MAU) and Kidoinfo to bring concerned mothers the Power of the Reusable Bag Action Week.

Wanting to find a way to help underprivileged youth gain access to better education, Karen de Bruin a French Professor at the University of Rhode Island and family members Andre and Estelle de Bruin co-founded the social venture, Poksak. By making an environmental friendly, versatile, reusable tote bag the company gives back to the community—helping the environment while supporting the Orphan Foundation of America and local business. The company hopes to enlarge its community through selling its products in small to large academic settings, as well as, co-branding with large companies or organizations that love the poksak and fully support the cause of sending orphans to college.

Poksak’s greatest fans have been schools, mothers, and children. By selling poksaks, schools can contribute to higher education. For each bag sold at $3.99, Poksak donates 25 cents to a scholarship fund that allots scholarships of up to $6000 to qualified orphans. The first scholarship is being awarded in June 2010. Fun for kids, they can stuff the bags back into the cute pouches and then trade them with their friends. Mothers can use them for every day errands; easily store in a briefcase, pocket and purse, and are thus less likely to be forgotten when an extra bag is needed.

Poksaks dream is to come full-circle, meaning that it would eventually like to become an international company, have all of its products made from recycled materials and it would like to not only help orphans go to college, but to hire orphans for jobs and internships.

Buy poksaks locally in Rhode Island at the following locations purchase online at www.poksak.com

• South County Montessori School in Wickford
• Goddard School in South Kingstown
• Bliss Cafe in Newport
• The Secret Garden in Jamestown
• The Narragansett Bike Shop in Narragansett
• Newport Athletic Club
• Jamestown Designs, Jamestown
• Le Petit Gourmet, Newport
• Little Friends Farm, Middletown
• LoveBugs, Providence
• KinderArt, Newport

September 19, 2009 from 9 AM – Noon

Each year on the third Saturday in September, volunteers around the world show they care about their coasts by flocking to the beaches to clean up and document the trash they find. The Audubon Society of Rhode Island coordinates cleanup efforts for the Ocean State. The “Hold the Line!” theme for this year encourages anglers to properly dispose of used and snarled fishing line which can entangle wildlife.

Trash in the marine environment is unsightly, and it’s a threat to wildlife,” said Audubon’s Executive Director Lawrence Taft. “The International Coastal Cleanup gives Rhode Islanders a way to take action and raise awareness of this important issue in our state. The data we collect helps document the problem and provides background for policy decisions on issues such as beach smoking, recycling, and fisheries and wildlife management.”

If you would like to volunteer, please contact one of the local cleanup leaders listed below. For general questions, contact Audubon at 401-949-5454. This is a rain-or-shine event, but may be postponed in the event of a severe storm. Bring a pair of gloves and come prepared to make a difference!

LOCATIONS:

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Here are few gifts dad may like depending on your budget and his interests. For some local handmade options, check Linda’s crafty gift ideas for dad.

1. Quality time with the kids. A family outing or just dad and the kids may start with breakfast at home or at his favorite diner or coffee shop. (My husband loves having bagels and lox at home as much as dining out at the Modern Diner in Pawtucket) followed by an afternoon outing like a trip to the beach, park, or museum. My husband takes photos wherever we go.

2. An event. Give a gift-certificate (for two, if it includes you) to his favorite local restaurant or tickets to a sports game or music concert.

3. Re-purposed. Wallets and messenger bags made from old sails (Ragged Edge products found at OOP!), tires or street signs make a very stylish statement and are a cool re-use of discarded items.

4. Good for the environment. More cool green gift ideas found on TreeHugger.com include a living ecosphere, bike basket, enamel stacked lunch box, beginner beekeeping kit, and a push reel mower.

5. Techy Gadgets. My husband loves most tech things as do many dads I know. Although my husband may covet the new iPhone3G with cool added or improved features, he will keep the phone he got last year. An iTunes gift card of any value though is always handy and appreciated—allows him to buy music, movies or special apps for phone, music player or computer.

6. Make a book. Have your children help create a special keepsake for dad. Every year we make my husband an accordian book filled with pictures and words documenting our sons’ current stage of development, likes and loves.

Wear Blue on Monday! “World Oceans Day” is officially June 8 starting this year, 2009. Although the concept for this holiday has been unofficially celebrated around the world since 1992, the official designation by the U.N. is a significant step in conserving and protecting our world’s ocean.

“World Oceans Day” provides an opportunity each year to celebrate our world ocean and our personal connection to the sea. The Ocean Project, based in Rhode Island, works closely with the World Ocean Network each year, helping to coordinate events and activities with aquariums, zoos, museums, conservation organizations, universities, schools, businesses.

First we need to teach our children why oceans are important and then learn what we can do as a family to protect them. To help celebrate the event, kids between the ages of 5 and 13 can enter into an art contest expressing “Why I Love the Ocean!” Whole Foods Market University Heights (601 N. Main Street, Providence) is offering up prizes from the store before the entries are sent off to the national judges. Completed entries can either be brought to the store by Monday, June 15th to win prizes locally, or can be mailed directly to the national contest. Click here for details about the art contest.

Why Should We Celebrate World Oceans Day? (courtesy of The Ocean Project,)

The world’s ocean:

• Generates most of the oxygen we breathe
• Helps feed us
• Regulates our climate
• Cleans the water we drink
• Offers us a pharmacopoeia of potential medicines
• Provides limitless inspiration!

It’s up to each one of us to help ensure that our ocean is protected and conserved for future generations. World Oceans Day allows us to:

• Change perspective – encourage individuals to think about what the ocean means to them and what it has to offer all of us with hopes of conserving it for present and the future generations.
• Learn – discover the wealth of diverse and beautiful ocean creatures and habitats, how our daily actions affect them, and how we are all interconnected.
• Change our ways – we are all connected to the ocean! By taking care of your backyard, you are acting as a caretaker of our ocean. Making small modifications to your everyday habits will greatly benefit our blue planet.
• Celebrate – whether you live inland or on the coast we are all connected to the ocean; take the time to think about how the ocean affects you, and how you affect the ocean, and then organize or participate in activities that celebrate our world ocean.

by Katy Killilea

Yogurt and hummus are two of the main food groups for lots of young families, and typically these foods are  packaged in #5 plastics. Number fives aren’t yet recyclable in Rhode Island, so after you’ve reused your containers as paint-mixing receptacles or bathtub cups, they’re usually landfill-bound.

Relief is in sight for environmentally concerned parents of  yogurt munchers. Preserve is a company that needs your #5 plastics—to make toothbrushes, razors, and colanders, and nifty green storage bowls. Participating Whole Foods stores act as collection sites on behalf of Preserve, including both Providence locations and the Cranston store.

For more information, read all about it here!

This morning my boys and I talked about Earth Day. Here are our goals for today (and everyday)

1. Buy less stuff. Buy only what is needed.

2. Use our refillable water bottles more.

3. Recycle paper more (e.g. mail, old artwork) and have less of it end up in the trash.

4. Clean up our park and neighborhood streets and sidewalk today if it does not rain.

5. Turn off unnecessary lights.

6. Turn off the water while brushing teeth.

What are you doing today?

Reviewed by Katy Killilea

Which scenario is worse?

A. Child #1 sneezes on a Duplo block and leaves. Child #2 comes along and sucks on the sneezed-upon block.

B. The blocks have all been cleaned with a hardcore disinfectant. A baby crawls over and starts chewing on them.

Both scenarios give me the heebie-jeebies, but the idea of a child ingesting traces of Formula 409 particularly gets under my skin. If you would similarly be more freaked out by “B,” you will love Dapple Toy Cleaner Spray.

Dapple was created by moms who didn’t like seeing their kids play with objects coated in toxic cleaning chemicals OR another child’s mucus. These cleaning products are intentionally not antibacterial. Instead they work like soap and water—cleaning that’s thorough but mild-mannered. The toy cleaner works beautifully on toys, of course, and also on countertops and the insides of lunchboxes. It would be ideal for cleaning a highchair tray, or any hard surface that your child is likely to lick. The scent is mild and wonderful, like a baby fresh from the tub.

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Home Work: Lessons from Work-at-Home Parents. This series of Kidoinfo interviews looks at how these parents manage to squeeze in work time at home (whether working for someone else or running their own business) along with juggling kids, home life, and childcare (or lack of it). Do you want to share your home work with us? We love to hear how other parents get through their day. Nominate yourself or a friend or someone you admire from afar and we may feature their work-at-home story.

Today Katy Killilea interviews Kim Falcone , the founder of Lily’s Garden Herbals, a company that creates all-natural and mostly organic herbal products for home and health in Wakefield, Rhode Island.

Kidoinfo: What inspired you to start your business?

Kim: My two daughters, when they were very young. They both inherited respiratory and skin allergies from me, and I grew up using steroids topically and orally as well as antihistamines.
I wanted a different, more natural health journey for them.

How did you start your business?

Kim: It was an evolutionary process. I began offering advice back in the late ‘90s to family and friends regarding natural health and how herbs complement each other. From there, word spread that I was the ‘village herbalist’ in our closely knit community, and folks started to seek me out. During that time I was learning about herbal essential oils. I decided that with the antimicrobial properties so many of them possess, combined with the wonderful aromatherapy they provide, why not use them to clean rather than using the toxic chemicals I had grown up surrounded by?

How do you balance work and family?

Kim: Well, it was certainly a challenge when the girls were younger; however, my hours have always coincided with their school schedules. At three o’clock, I close the office door and put on my mom hat. Now that my older daughter is off at college and my seventeen-year-old drives, I am freed up quite a bit. This is not to say that I am not present when needed. In fact, I find I need to check in frequently to see what she is up to! As far as marriage is concerned, that’s easy. My husband is my business mentor since he is also a small-business owner. We have a broad range of topics to discuss! It keeps our marriage from getting boring!

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By Katy Killilea

A friend I admire very much has a refrigerator magnet that speaks to my soul: “A Clean House is a Sign of a Wasted Life.” I think of this magnet in the evenings as I chip ossified breakfast cereal off of the kitchen floor. Life waster that I am, though, I like certain things neat. (If anyone knows of a similar magnet for “An Ironed Shirt” or “Consistently-Groomed Eyebrows,” please alert me.)

For people who like to clean (or hate to clean but do it anyway) and can’t stand fumes or the aura of drudgery that hovers around traditional cleaning products, there are lots of good choices. Some people splurge on an entire matching set of Mrs. Meyer’s products from toilet bowl cleaner to dryer sheets. People seem to form tribal-like loyalty to their favorite Mrs. Meyer’s scent; could a Lemon Verbena and a Basil ever really get along? The new line of cleaning products from J. R. Watkins look like they escaped from the Kiehl’s counter at Nordstrom to hide out under the kitchen sink. The lemon dish soap makes my whole world smell—and I mean this in the best possible way— of Pez. Both of these brands are available all over the place, even at Target, and are natural, not harmful to humans, and not tested on animals.

But for something completely different, look into Lily’s Garden Herbals made locally in Wakefield.

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Today is National Arbor Day. Two of my favorite books are The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. These stories remind us how important our tress are.

Get in a tree mood: Listen to C is for Conifers by They Might Be Giants on itunes.

Celebrate locally: RITree invites everyone to join in celebrating Arbor Day by watching the beginning of a forest, and by honoring the important work of arborists in Rhode Island. The staff at Goddard Memorial State Park and a team of RI arborists, with help from a small army of Tree Stewards, will plant up to 100 trees.

Everyone is invited to the Arbor Day Fair and tree planting. The event will showcase demonstrations by arborists, displays by tree-related organizations and information about proper planting and mulching methods. Raffles every hour, to give away a free tree. Come and learn what it is that arborists do, and meet the people who do it. This is a fair for all ages, so pack a picnic lunch and a blanket, bring the whole family, and enjoy this beautiful park on a spring day.

Details:
Arbor Day Fair and tree planting, sponsored by RITree
Saturday, April 26, 2008 from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm
Goddard Memorial Park, Warwick, RI
401-764-5885

More Events: Earth Day Cleanup
Clean up events across the city take place throughout the week. Visit What Grows on RI for a listing of locations.

Although Earth Day was officially Tuesday, our trees need a healthy environment in order to grow everyday.
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