By Jamie Folsom | National Director
Many people say and wish they could start their own business and make a difference in their communities. But it takes guts and funding to take the first steps to do so. This past week we had our Green Business Development Training at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCREC). Although there were only two participants, they brought their passion and talents for their communities to the experience.
Ginger of King Cove, Alaska, has the idea to tackle waste management by diverting food waste from the landfill and creating compost for organic gardening to fill the need for fresh, affordable food. She traveled for two days to be in Pine Ridge and learn much about Lakota history and culture.
“This was the trip of a lifetime, and I will never forget it,” Ginger said of her first trip outside King Cove in 10 years. She was inspired by her experience to take the first steps of her goal of starting a compost program with her Tribe – she is planning on entering a college program in Environmental Sciences in the fall.
Trent of the Tule River Reservation also brought another great idea to the training. During the week he honed in on the specifics of building the renewable energy capacity for a Tribe in California through family and facility scale solar electric solutions, starting with Tribal elders. He hopes to return to RCREC for a solar applications training later this year, and connect with others in his community who want to be a part of this endeavor.
Meanwhile our Green Business Award winner from last year – Tyler – has achieved much since October. Cloud Nine Recycling is now an LLC, and he is currently in the process of buying a box truck so that he can decide on when and where he will take his recycling inventory to market, rather than paying high rental prices for a truck. He is an inspiration to others who want to wade into entrepreneurship and make a difference in his community to be clean and green!
Thanks to our GlobalGiving family for supporting these up and coming “Indianpreneurs” in their first steps toward making a positive impact in their communities!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
