Celebrate the Earth and create a healthier environment for all – with Fundreds!
Thursday, April 22 is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. What are you doing to celebrate? What “acts of green” will you take?
We invite you to the Greenway for a free Earth Day Concert with The River 92.5 (featuring They Might Be Giants and Citizen Cope). And participate with the Greenway Conservancy in Mel Chin’s Fundred Dollar Bill Project to raise money to safely remove lead from properties in New Orleans.
The Greenway will be a collection site for the Fundred Dollar Bill Project, a nationwide, collaborative art project that asks people of all ages and walks of life to create their own version of the U.S. $100 bill, or a “Fundred”. The goal of the Fundred Project is to deliver all Fundreds to Congress in the spring of 2010, with the hopes that Congress will fund the estimated $300,000,000 price tag of Operation Paydirt – a project to neutralize hazardous lead in the soils of New Orleans.
As Liz Hall states in Big, Red & Shiny, “The problem with the Fundred Dollar Bill Project is that it’s really hard to explain in ten seconds or less. … outlining why this is a worthwhile cause usually means most people have zoned out by the time you get to “And the way that YOU can help…” Another problem is that lead contamination is not a “sexy” cause.”
But we think that 17-year-old Green and Grow Apprentice Jayla Tucker made a very compelling case for supporting the project in a recent report she wrote for Artists in Context. “With lead so acutely affecting the future of New Orleans, we can only imagine that in a couple of decades or even years, New Orleans will not change for the better, but for the worse. It may change from the diverse, culturally-rich place we all know, into a state of violence, crime, and poverty. The worst part about this is that the children of New Orleans have no voice. They have no say in how the environment in which they live is treated and destroyed, and therefore they have no say in how they learn and grow into the leaders of the future. Until now. The Fundred project gives not only the children of New Orleans a voice, but also young people all over the country a voice and a chance to make a difference and create a healthier environment for the children of New Orleans.”
Make a Fundred; make a point. Join us on the Greenway (between High Street and East India row; look for the Greenway tent!) on Thursday between 12 and 3 PM to make a Fundred…and help create a healthier environment for all. Healthy soils = healthy plants = healthy people.