Dear Cool the Earth Community,
While nearly 100 elementary school communities are engaged in running Cool the Earth this academic year, we are happy to announce that we have also launched a new program for businesses, “Cool the Earth Corporate.”
Beginning last fall, employees from the San Francisco headquarters of Well Fargo were introduced to a corporate version of the Cool the Earth program. These staffers spent three months focusing on decreasing their energy use and reducing waste while at work and home, and participating in actions of the month aimed at powering down their computers and reducing lunch time waste.
The corporate version of Cool the Earth is a lot like the school version, but it is focused on employee engagement and has an emphasis on work time activities. We are thrilled with the results of this pilot program! After three months of operation, over 50% of the employees at Wells Fargo participated in the program by turning in coupons, taking over 500 actions to reduce their emissions by over 519,000 pounds of CO2. Additionally, as a new partner to Cool the Earth, Wells Fargo has agreed to fund nine additional elementary schools to run our schools program.
As we continue to expand into more corporations, we wanted to let you know that this new employee engagement program is available. If you know of a company that you think might be interested in running the corporate version of Cool the Earth, please let us know. We are committed to engaging the public in the serious issue of climate change. When communities come together and take actions as a group to lower their carbon emissions, they see the power of community action and that small actions do add up to make a big difference.
Thanks for being a part of our community by volunteering your time and supporting our grass-roots program.
Sincerely,
CARLEEN CULLEN,
Founder and Executive Director
Cool the Earth
FEATURED SCHOOL COORDINATOR
Roberta Powers, Sandpiper Elementary School, Redwood City, CA
Fifth grade teacher Roberta Powers was delighted when her principal approached her to be the Cool the Earth coordinator for Sandpiper Elementary in Redwood City, CA. “I’m the head of student council so it made sense for me to run this.” Now in its third year, Powers really loves it. “The kids here are extremely devoted to this program,” says Powers who has two college-aged children--Annie and Alex. “I love to hear them talk to one another about ‘wastefulness’ and ‘being green.” Roberta has had success by coupling the coupon collection day with school spirit days, she says. It also helps that some of her coworkers have turned out to be great thespians, “We have two teachers who do an awesome interpretation of Carbon and Methane!” And all their efforts have not gone unnoticed. “After giving a presentation about
Cool the Earth to the City Council of Redwood City, we received a proclamation from the mayor!,” she says, adding, “That was the most rewarding moment."
 TIP OF THE MONTHRefer a school to Cool the Earth.
We have funds available to offer the Cool the Earth program to K-8 public and private schools anywhere in the country at no charge this school year. There’s still time to get the program going and run a successful 2-3 month campaign before the end of the school year. Know someone who could inspire hundreds of people to take action to reduce their carbon emissions (with the help of the Cool the Earth program, of course)? Please send us their name and email address, and we’ll contact them to tell them about this great opportunity info@cooltheearth.org.
We're thankful to our many partners and supporters who have enabled Cool the Earth to grow from just 25 schools last year to almost 100 currently.
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