Green Jobs Now! Event Highlights « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Here at the Green For All office, we’re just beginning get in photos from Green Jobs Now events around the country. And the results are amazing! We’ll keep you updated as the events keep rolling in from nearly all 50 states. Here’s a few highlights for now:

In White Plains, New York an event put on by Community Housing Innovations (CHI) rallied nearly 50 people in support of a green economy. “Green Jobs are good jobs and can reverse the erosion of construction jobs in America,” said CHI Executive Director Alexander Roberts. “We need educated carpenters, crane operators, plumbers and heating contractors, not to mention solar panel installers—all of which pay higher than those in our service economy.”

From Chester, Pennsylvania, Desire Grover writes, “The event was a heart warming success. Community leaders, Developers, Architects and Teachers throughout Chester attended along with young adults who just wanted to be in the know about where the, potentially new, jobs might be.”

And it’s not just solar panels going up on rooftops. In San Francisco, CA, community members gathered at Glide Church to celebrate the opening of a new rooftop garden. The garden was planted by children in the church’s youth program. Many of them turned out for the event and called for green jobs.

They’ll be lots of new green projects happening in New Mexico thanks to the work of green jobs organizers there. In Santa Fe, Santa Fe Alliance and ¡YouthWorks! celebrated the success of an innovative pilot “Green Collar” jobs program. The City of Santa Fe contributed approximately $162,000 toward this pilot, making this the second largest municipal commitment to a green collar jobs program in the country, second to Oakland, California.

Thanks to these great events and many more today’s media coverage has been phenomenal! Here are some of the highlights:

New York Times: “Green the Bailout“

The Flint Journal: “A Green Flint“

The Times Picayune: “Rally Promotes Green Jobs”

Congratulations to all of the event organizers and everyone who came out today to celebrate the new green economy. Keep checking the green jobs now website for more event updates!

About Jamie

Jamie is the co-coordinator of 350.org, an international global warming campaign. A recent college graduate, he lives in San Francisco, CA. In 2007, he co-organized Step It Up, a campaign that pulled together over 2,000 climate rallies across the United States to push for strong climate action at the federal level. He's also an early member of the youth climate movement, leading one of Energy Action's first campaigns in 2005: Road to Detroit, a nationwide veggie-oil bus tour to promote sustainable transportation. He's traveled to Montreal and Bali to lobby the UN with youth, but he's a strong believer that change happens in the streets not in meetings. Jamie received the Morris K. Udall award in 2007 and has been recognized by the mighty state of Vermont for his work on climate change. You can also find him blogging at Campus Progress' "Pushback," Changents.com, and 350.org.

3 Responses to “Green Jobs Now! Event Highlights”

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1 Joshua Kahn Russell Sep 27th, 2008 at 9:55 pm

amazing job everyone!
2 joshlynch Sep 27th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

Thanks 350.org folks!!!! This is great. There are SOO SOOO many stories to tell. Check out the reports on http://www.greenjobsnow.com!

Here are notes from our check in call tonight for all of your enjoyment!!

Parin - Pittsburgh
2 things that happened in pittsburgh that were really pretty amazing.

This guy came at 8:15am when we were setting everything up. He asked if he could help. He was incredible. Got a bunch of petitions. Answered peoples’ questions, helped with BBQ. His story was that he was an accountant. Ended up being homeless and losing his family. He was looking for a purpose. The heart and soul of people is incredible.

This woman, Ebony, literally built a community garden since the Dream Reborn. They had food this year.

If those two things are all that happened, we did right.

If we hear two people, it’s 2000 people.

Julian - Atlanta
When I got here on Thursday things were just so far along. Events have been great. Let’s Raise a Million event was great. Media was there. Young folks from 6 different schools. Went out in the community, getting an amazing response. People were excited to get their lightbulbs switched out. The ability of people out there, makes me think that we’re really gonna be alright.

Cozell Harris (formerly incarcerated man) does life training and job training. He put up all his signs, 70 people RSVPed, all 70 showed up with their families. Someone saw Green Jobs Now sign on the street. Showed up. At the end of the event, he said to Cozell, I have 50 garden contracts at the end of the month. It looks like you have the people right here. Call me on Monday and let’s getting going. Those kind of things are the kind of things that make you know you’re on the right track.

Stacy - Seattle
Moontown Foundation is so appreciative and glad to be working with us. Everything went great.

Brennan - Chicago
Caterer came late. Some things were hairy. But when everything came together, it was green and sexy to the max! I started out the day with an asbestos training hands on this morning. They didn’t really know what was going on, but had the training. Some of them came to Kindy’s thing, education session with 50 people. Naomi had about 60 people with great mural, paint by numbers, five trees, lots of trees. I didn’t get the video from Jumaani’s event. I gave this girl a ride home from this event. Were in crazy downtown traffic. This guy cuts me off in traffic. He pulls down his window and says “you’re the guy from Greenpeace, right?” He pulls down his window and gives me the videos (it’s the videographer!). I’m so glad to see peoplereally impacted by this work.

Kristin - Oakland
Big bus, people doing demonstrations, solar panels. Talking to people who were applying for jobs.

Jacob - Oakland
The music acts were really sweet. Liked Femi a whole bunch. I did a video interview with this guy. Said he was doing this survey of the landscape. I asked what he was going to do next and he said, “get a union job”.

Ada - Oakland
I was also frazzled and running around. It was hot and sunny. Fun day in the park. Cool tabling things. People chilling out in the park. Good vibe.

Ryan - San Francisco
Went to a big event in front of CA Academy of Sciences building. 15-20 of us with 15000 people. We had our hard hats, banners, poster. Got some really good interviews with people. Got to go into Academy of Science. Interviews with employees about the green roofs. Small on our end, but got to talk to a lot of people.

Jeremy - Portland
Who are these people? There are so many incredible reports from around the country in places we didn’t even know about. The collection of photos and videos are just incredible. There’s a tendency to be like, whew we did it. We’re gonna get back in the office at 9 or 10am on Monday and log this stuff. We’re like squirrels going in winter and we have to go collect all these nuts.
3 Desire Grover Sep 28th, 2008 at 8:41 am

This has been an awesome experience and I’m very thankful to be apart of it. There is still a lot of work to do in Chester for sure but we are encouraged YOU GUYS ROCK!

TRUTH 2 POWER,
DG