Holes

Yesterday afternoon the Outlaw Men's Rugby Team stopped by the backyard of CCASL to help dig all thirty-four holes necessary for our perimeter fence to make our community garden marmot proof.  After a short safety speech and some explanation of how the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga University was going to put the produce to good use, we started on a task that took the team 2 hours to complete.

All this work was a great addition to the work the was completed a few weeks ago by a few other student groups.

Green Your Halloween

Green Halloween is a growing trend being encouraged by people trying to Live Green to apply the 'green' concepts to Halloween.

The main focus of Greening Your Halloween is to be making eco-friendly, earth-friendly and healthier choices when it comes to the food, the costumes, the decorations and the activities people are choosing to celebrate the Halloween Holiday.

Green Halloween

Food - Focus on Healthier and Organic Treats
Costumes - Reused, Made from Reused or Recyclable items
Decorations - Reusable or Recyclable ones
Activities - Carnivals, Trick or Treating with emphasis on the 'treats' (treating others or volunteering)

Orange Halloween

Food - Lots of Candy and Sugar
Costumes - Store Bought
Decorations - Store Bought
Activities - Trick or Treating, with emphasis on the 'tricks'

Halloween is the holiday that most people ignore or forget until last minute and then go out the day before and spend way more then they intended. If this is you, do not fear for we will help you plan a more organized Halloween which will not only be better for you, but it will be better for the environment.

Your first step to planning a greener and more organized Halloween is to decide what you are going to hand out. So many Americans go out to the store and buy one or two 10 pound bags of candy which adds to the landfill due to packaging and is an unhealthy choice for kids. Instead try making your own Halloween candy to hand out. This could be a fun way to get into the season and spend a Sunday afternoon. Try this candy corn recipe: HERE  You can also choose from any of these store-bought options which have the least amount of additional wrapping.

1)      100% Fruit-Roll Ups or Fruit leather

2)      Boxes of raisins

3)      100% Fruit juices

4)      Small packages of nuts or sunflower seeds

5)      Mini-bags of microwave popcorn

6)      Small bags of pretzels

7)       Organic Candy
    it’s still sweet, but more environmentally friendly.

8)      Mini granola bars

9)      Snack-size graham crackers, animal crackers or goldfish

10)  Mini dark- chocolate bars with nuts

11)  100 Calorie Packs- Portion controlled packages it helps to keep kids from going hog wild

            Halloween costumes have changed drastically through the years. Finding a Halloween costume used to consist of sorting through old clothes and dress up trunks to find a good costume you already have. I remember when I was a kid multiple Halloweens when I wore the same witch costume slightly altered. Visit this website for ideas on how to make a homemade costume: HERE .

If you end up buying a Halloween costume look for things:

• Made with eco-friendly materials such as organic cotton, wool or hemp.
• Made by decent Fair Trade or sustainable companies.
• That can be used more than once.
• That are recyclable – for example, for accessories, such as a sword look for felt or cardboard vs. plastic.

The final tip regards your Halloween candy bags. Going around collecting candy from house to house requires bags to put your candy in. Instead of using plastic bags, use reusable grocery bags or an old pillowcase. You never know if someone providing candy will slip a few more pieces in your bag because you chose to be eco-friendly.

I hope these tips were helpful for you to start a Green Halloween. 

Happy Halloween!

Time to get started

We here at CCASL have had many conversations about needing to start a blog, wanting to start a blog, and here we are finally starting a blog.  It is kind of ironic than an office with the word like Action in the name has had such a hard time starting our blog.  We hope that by writing about our efforts in the community and some of our across the world travels, others can come along on our journeys into self knowledge and reflection.  In the future you will probably be able to read student, watch videos, and hear stories of accomplishments great and small on this blog.  

We know that a picture is often worth more than 1,000 words so we will try our best to photo document our activities and make this a site that is fun to visit and read.   This will be a place where the story can be told of Gonzaga University students, faculty and staff actively engaging the university mission and our center’s mission to develop student leaders with and ethic of service and life-long thirst for social justice.  

Because pictures are so much fun; here is one of our office entrance the week before Halloween.