With this year’s Green Apple Day of Service just two months away, it’s time to start thinking about how your project will come together.  I’m asked all the time for ideas on where to get supplies and resources for events, so I pulled together five of my favorite tips for getting what you need to make your Day of Service a success.

1. Think locally: One of the greatest things about the Day of Service is that it provides an entire community with the opportunity to show their commitment to improving their local schools. Get local businesses in on the act by asking for donations of whatever they can offer – supplies and materials like dirt, paint, tools and more. Something maybe even easier for them to provide: gift cards or store credit for your group to use toward your Day of Service needs.
2. Potluck! With a large volunteer pool, you can often gather all the supplies (food or otherwise) you need by sending around a checklist and asking everyone to chip in. People have all kinds of things kicking around in their basements and garages, like shovels, hammers, rakes, ladders and extra tools. Use your event’s registration page on mygreenapple.org to ask volunteers and others to contribute the supplies you’ll need. Volunteers can RSVP for your event right on the site and let you know what they’ll contribute.
3. There is such a thing as a free lunch! Local delis, grocery stores or restaurants might provide free lunch (or coffee, waters, juice, etc.) for the Day of Service. Offer them the opportunity to post their own signage on site so they’ll get some good publicity for their good deed.
4. Get online: In addition to mygreenapple.org, community sites like Craigslist.com, Idealist.org and volunteermatch.org can help you publicize your event, recruit volunteers and search for free or cheap supplies and equipment.
5. Get creative: After the 2012 Day of Service, we heard from several creative project captains who went outside traditional giving circles for support of their projects. Companies such as Ernst & Young, Starbucks, Home Depot, Target and many others provided local projects with volunteer support and materials.

These are only a few ideas to get you started, but the common theme is “don’t be afraid to ask.” Share your own ideas with us on twitter using #greenapple, and register your project today at mygreenapple.org/dayofservice. Good luck! 

Two weeks ago, the Center for Green Schools (@mygreenschools) had the pleasure of virtually sitting down with the Green Sports Alliance (@sportsalliance) and the Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) over Twitter to talk green sports, the Green Apple Day of Service and more. In case you missed it, we've got you covered with a recap of our favorite questions of the day:

Green Sports Alliance (Alliance): Let’s get started with a question to Scott Jenkins from the Mariners: How are your team and venue going green?
Seattle Mariners (Mariners): We think green in all our operations at Safeco Field: recycling, conservation and solar. Details are here. We even partner with BASF on Sustainable Saturdays to involve fans in our efforts through a trivia game.

Alliance: CFGS, can you please tell us a little about the Green Apple Day of Service?
Center for Green Schools (CFGS): There're more than a quarter million green schools advocates volunteering September 28 this year. Join us!

Alliance: How are sports teams and venues participating in the Green Apple Day of Service?
CFGS: Last year the Mariners, the Seattle Sounders, the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Storm united to augment a garden at Denny Middle School. From Kansas City to Philly, teams are making partnerships and using our toolkit to plan their 2013 projects.

Alliance: Mariners, tell us about your experience last year with the Green Apple Day of Service.
Mariners: It was a great event with Washington Green Schools and McKinstry. We also had Carter Capps at Sand Point Elementary for a garden project a few weeks ago. Seattle Sounders' Taylor Graham was there, too.

Alliance: How can fans get involved in Green Apple Day of Service?
CFGS: Fans can partner with a local school and register a project (big or small!) through mygreenapple.org.

Alliance: What questions do you have for our followers about how they are influenced by green sports?
Mariners: Are fans recycling habits at home same as at the ballpark? How can we help fans be greener at games?

Twitter follower response: The more options we have to recycle, compost, etc., the more people use them. Keep putting those options in!  
Mariners: We are aiming for over 90 percent recycle rate at Safeco Field. We are close and fans can help us get there. That would be amazing.

Alliance: Rachel, how are you engaging teams around the Green Apple initiative?
Rachel Gutter (RG): It was my pleasure to speak at the '12 GSA summit. I can't wait to see everyone again this year!

Green Sports Alliance then opened the floor up for our followers to ask us questions:

Q: Mariners, what do you find most rewarding from your impressive work?
Mariners: The growth of the movement through the industry. We now have 179 teams and venues as members of the Alliance!

Q: Mariners, do you think we'll see venues use rainwater harvesting for use in bathrooms, to offset water use?
A: Yes. Makes great sense for new construction. Waterless or low-flow fixtures for retrofits.

Q: Rachel, How can sports teams provide a positive role model for kids & their communities via the Green Apple initiative?
RG: Athletes carry a lot of weight with today's kids- they should serve as role models in sustainability every day by demonstrating green behavior. Our toolkit is a great way to get started.

Q: What about schools using rainwater harvesting for use in bathrooms, to offset water use?
A CFGS: Schools are already doing it! Check out Bertschi's rainwater collection system!

Q: For the Mariners- Scott, what did you accomplish from your week of hauling your own waste? That was crazy!
1.1 pounds for the week from SEA to NY to Bellingham. Join us next year.

As always, it was a pleasure to work with Green Sports Alliance and the Seattle Mariners to spread the word about the important partnership of sports + sustainability. We look forward to seeing all of the great projects at this year's Green Apple Day of Service. Remember- you can find a project that is already happening in your community and join in (perhaps even with a sports team!) or start your own project. Go #GreenSports!

NYC students to build green living walls on Rockefeller Plaza as part of Center’s Green Apple Initiative

NEW YORK – (April 17, 2013) – NBC’s TODAY Show is scheduled to celebrate Earth Day, Monday, April 22, by building six green living walls on Rockefeller Plaza with local students from Bronx public schools. The segment will highlight the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council and the Center's flagship event, the Green Apple Day of Service.

Rachel Gutter, the director of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC, along with Green Apple ambassador and Bronx educator Stephen Ritz and students from his dynamic community program, the Green Bronx Machine, will join TODAY Show hosts Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker and Natalie Morales, along with celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis and others, to build the walls and participate in Earth Day activities throughout the morning.

The Green Apple Day of Service, which takes place on Sept. 28 this year, gives parents, teachers, students, partner companies, and local organizations, the opportunity to transform all schools into healthy, safe, cost-efficient and productive learning environments. On Monday, the TODAY show audience will learn about how classroom environmental efforts and day of service-type activities, such as building living walls, can serve as important teaching tools throughout the year.

Guests are invited to Rockefeller Center to watch the segment live during the 8 and 9 a.m. hours of the show and first arrivals will be given Green Apple t-shirts to show their support. Please arrive at Rockefeller Center before 7 a.m. for best viewing. You can also spread the word using the Twitter hashtag #greenapple. For more information on Green Apple, visit mygreenapple.org. You can watch the Today Show segment here.

About Green Apple
Green Apple is an initiative of the Center for Green schools at USGBC to put all children in schools where they have clean and healthy air to breathe, where energy and resources are conserved and where they can be inspired to dream of a brighter future. Green Apple’s flagship event is the Green Apple Day of Service, which takes place on Sept. 28, 2013, and will bring together thousands of students, teachers, parents and community leaders from around the globe to improve our school environments through service projects, education, community events and more. You can visit mygreenapple.org to learn more about green living walls and other activities you can do throughout the year. Green Apple is funded through generous support from partners including United Technologies Corporation, Interface, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, SolarCity and Excel Dryer.

About the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council
The Center for Green Schools at USGBC is making sure every student has the opportunity to attend a green school within this generation. From kindergarten to college and beyond, the Center works directly with staff, teachers, faculty, students, ambassadors, elected officials and communities to drive the transformation of all schools into sustainable places to live and learn, work and play. For more information, visit centerforgreenschools.org, follow us on Twitter at @mygreenschools, and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/centerforgreenschools.

For former President Bill Clinton, the “right kind of future” for today’s K-12 students includes careers in energy efficiency and green schools. Citing the Center’s recent State of Our Schools Report while closing out the annual Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) this Sunday, Clinton described our nation’s existing school buildings as “an enormous employment opportunity for the American workforce,” pointing out that through programs like Gateway STEM High School in St. Louis, “Everybody can be trained to retrofit these buildings.”

More than 500 CGI U attendees came to Gateway on Sunday to finish off a big weekend of big ideas, giving back to the event’s host city. The former President and his cadre of volunteers worked on projects all over the school, on a day that set a high standard for this year’s Green Apple Day of Service events. Volunteers planted flowers and mulched, cleared walking trails, painted classrooms, assessed the building’s energy use and much more. The President opened the morning by thanking the U.S. Green Building Council, the Center for Green Schools and Washington University “for their involvement in this project, and their support of this school,” a school he described as an “outpost of opportunity” for its students. President Clinton called the day at Gateway a way for attendees to prove they are “serious about integrating service into every aspect of our lives,” and reminded the students that if they want “a future of shared prosperity, everybody’s got to have a chance to be a part of it."

President Clinton also thanked several of the service event’s in-kind supporters, including three Green Apple partners. Interface was on site to deliver pallets of donated carpet tiles, re-carpeting the school’s auditorium and band room. My knees are sore today from installing new Interface carpet in the band room, but the look on the face of the teacher when we were done was worth every minute. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided a new set of environmental titles to the school’s library and Excel Dryer donated and installed two new XLERATOR hand dryers, with plans to introduce their savings calculator tools to Gateway’s teachers and students.

I had the pleasure of working with CGI U staff in the weeks leading up to the service event, brainstorming sustainability projects that could happen at Gateway, drawing largely from project ideas for Green Apple Day of Service – something I heard many CGI U students are excited to participate in for the second time this coming September. The local USGBC Missouri Gateway Chapter also came out in force over the last few weeks, rallying local partners to support the event with an energy audit team, and securing the donation of a 25 kilowatt solar-energy system by Brightergy Solar Solutions.

Before visiting with volunteers around the 500,000 square foot facility, the President challenged those gathered to think of what could be done with a financing mechanism that saves schools like Gateway from having to dip into their already strained budgets for energy efficiency and other facilities improvements, instead paying for retrofits with the savings on utility bills. Explaining this paid-from-savings approach to school financing, Clinton called these strategies “the nearest thing America has to a win-win for the economy."

It was a great weekend at CGI U. This collection of the brightest and boldest thinkers on college campuses, in all 50 states and more than 70 countries, spent two days sharing their commitments to impact today’s most pressing social issues, including human rights, public health, climate change and education. These students are taking on the world’s most urgent issues, and I am confident that President Clinton’s support of equal access to better school facilities, and to STEM education for all communities and students, will have left a lasting impression on these young leaders for years to come.

In 2010 USGBC Students was formed out of the Center for Green Schools’ commitment to help students green their campus, community and careers.

In 2012, Jason Gasperich of Connor Sports, a USGBC Member Company, received an email from the Green Apple team asking him to become involved with the Day of Service. Jason was one of the 1300 project captains across the globe who heeded that call and worked to make schools a better place for the generations of students to come.

Around the same time Mick Founts, Superintendent of the San Joaquin County Office of Education, was planning a better learning environment for the students at the Excel Academy Collegiate Sports Health Science Preparatory High. Excel is an innovative charter school that caters to students pursuing a career in sports and health science. It makes sense that the learning environment Mick and his team were planning for those students was a new gym!

New gyms need new floors, and Connor Sports used the Day of Service to fulfill that need. They worked with the school to set up a recycling program around campus, and waived the fee for installing two new floors in the gym. The plastic they collected was used as a component of the very same floor Connor Sports built for the NCAA Final Four this year, the same floor that two lucky Excel Academy students got to see last week when Connor Sports flew them out to watch the Final Four!

When I heard this story, I knew I had to be there for the ribbon cutting of the gym on April 2. The Center has made a habit of recognizing districts, schools and advocates that really know how to make a difference. This partnership between the district and Connor Sports is why we started the Day of Service; to provide people who care about their communities and schools to come together and ignite change.

We hope you’ll join us and add your spark to this year’s Day of Service on September 28.

With spring finally in the air, the team at the Center for Green Schools is already getting excited for Green Apple Day of Service 2013! After a great inaugural year, we can’t wait to see an even bigger impact this September 28. Join us for a kick-off webcast on Thursday, April 11 at 6 p.m. EST to learn about what the Center for Green Schools and USGBC are planning for this year’s Day of Service, and how you can get started right away on your own events. We’ll have a series of webcasts all spring and summer, and all the resources and tools you’ll need available at mygreenapple.org. Register for our kick-off webcast, and together we’ll make this year’s Green Apple Day of Service another historic moment for green schools!

Can’t make it to the live call? We’ll record it and post it here, along with the schedule for upcoming trainings.

The first-ever Green Apple Day of Service on September 29, 2012 was a tremendous day of action with projects in nearly 1,300 communities around the world. People connected to their schools in an entirely new way, and demonstrated the potential for international engagement in support of healthy, high performing schools.

The launch of Green Apple Day of Service went from idea to action in less than nine months, taking a massive effort and strong support from across the Center for Green Schools, USGBC and a variety of new and existing partnerships. In places as diverse as they are far apart – including all 50 states, and 49 countries on all seven continents – communities came together to learn about and implement strategies for improved air quality, composting, recycling, resource conservation and more. Event organizers participated in webcasts hosted by the Center, recruited an estimated 169,000 volunteers and raised more than $774,000 in donated funds, goods and services to make their Day of Service projects happen.

From the teachers in Hawaii who learned how to make changes in their classrooms, the high school students and volunteers in Detroit who installed an outdoor classroom where previously there wasn’t a safe place for students to gather, the USGBC staff members who sorted through waste bins in Washington, DC, and the school children planting trees in Colombia, Day of Service engaged and strengthened communities around the world and showed that where we learn matters.

To show you all the great work you did, we’ve put together this infographic. With the first Day of Service behind us, and the many lessons learned, we are poised for an even higher level of engagement this year. Thank you, and save the date for September 28th, 2013!

You can download the full Day of Service infographic here.

On Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012, Excel Dryer Inc., manufacturer of the energy-efficient XLERATOR® hand dryer, joined thousands of organizations around the world in helping to create healthier learning environments for kids. For the inaugural Green Apple Day of Service, Excel Dryer teamed up with a long-time community organization with which it has an ongoing partnership. The Children’s Study Home (CSH), based in Springfield, MA, improves children’s lives through educational, residential and family services.

Excel Dryer staff, CSH students and volunteers from Western New England University worked alongside generous volunteers from Beebe Landscaping Services and Olympic Electric. Volunteers helped to landscape the campus while a small group of Global Sustainability members created signs to express sustainable ideas and hung them throughout the school. Other activities included facility upgrades such new LED lighting, garden plantings, a landscape clean-up and installation of new Green Apple XLERATOR® high-speed, energy-efficient hand dryers.

During the activities, a small group of students shadowed an electrician while he installed the new, energy-efficient hand dryers, while others cleared brush and planted new trees and shrubs. The students were able to get hands-on experience while learning how to make a difference in their community.

Activity leaders asked students to sign certificates that confirmed their participation in the Day of Service as well as their advocacy for future Green Apple efforts. The certificate and the accompanying Green Apple pins deputized the students and volunteers as part of the CSH “Green Apple Corps.”

Among the hard-working volunteers that day was Denis Gagnon, president and owner of Excel Dryer. Denis is a former board president of the Children’s Study Home and sits on the board of both CSH and Western New England University. During his term as CSH board president, Denis headed the capital campaign that funded the $3 million expansion of the CSH Mill Pond School. Participating in the Green Apple Day of Service extended Denis’ commitment to ensuring that Mill Pond lives up to its fullest potential.

As a final activity, volunteers placed their handprints on a giant banner to commemorate the day. In a span of just a few hours, the Mill Pond campus became more aware, more sustainable, and greener – inside and out. In addition to making the campus beautiful, the makeover helped to spread the message of sustainability at CSH and the surrounding community. The Green Apple Day of Service was a success in so many ways, and it is a testament to the amazing things that happen when people come together for a specific cause.

As a Green Apple partner, Excel Dryer will manufacture Green Apple-branded XLERATOR hand dryers. For each dryer sold, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to CFGS programs, supporting the organization’s mission to create safe and healthy facilities that enhance students’ ability to learn and teachers’ ability to teach. The Green Apple XLERATOR (XL-SI-1.1N) hand dryers installed at The Children’s Study Home feature XLERATOR accessories which include the new certified HEPA filtration system, speed and sound control and 1.1 noise reduction nozzle. For more information, visit www.exceldryer.com or call 1.800.255.9235.

CHF International, a humanitarian relief and development organization, has been working with slum communities in India since 2003. With support from the Caterpillar Foundation and in partnership with the Centre for Social Action (CSA) of Christ University, CHF is improving waste collection and management in the slums of Bangalore and raising the dignity of the waste recyclers, who had been working informally and were often targeted by police as thieves. CHF helped the waste pickers organize and form an association, Hasirudala, which means “green force” and the city government issued identification cards for the first time to more than 5,000 waste pickers.

To build on our efforts to raise awareness about the importance of proper solid waste management and to promote sustainability, CHF International, as a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, decided to launch an entire week of activities in Bangalore as part of the Green Apple Day of Service. With funding from the Caterpillar Foundation, CHF International partnered with CSA and Reap Benefit, a green social enterprise which helps monitor sustainable operations of schools and colleges across India. The campaign was launched at the Christ University campus by the chief guest Mr. Sadashivaiah (IFS Retd), former chairperson of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. During the week, volunteers from Interface, a global Green Apple sponsor, and Caterpillar also joined in and worked side-by-side with the community.

The "Green Apple week" launched on Sept. 25 with planting trees at seven schools, continued with field trips by children from six eco-clubs to the CHF-supported Kasa Rasa 2 recycling, paper unit and composting facility, and concluded with children-led rallies and street plays in two slums, and a huge clean-up and street sweeping effort. More than 160 students participated in the tree planting and learned about the medicinal benefits of many of the plants.

Close to 250 students visited the recycling center to learn about the importance of proper solid waste management. They got to try their hand at making paper, and took a pledge to sort and separate their garbage at home. The funding provided by the Caterpillar Foundation for the initial centers, inspired the city of Bangalore to donate land for four more for a total of seven so far, including Kasa Rasa 2. CHF International is working with the India Green Building Council to seek LEED certification for the facility.

The Green Apple week continued with a student rally on Sept. 27, organized by CSA and Reap Benefit with support from CHF International. The rally was inaugurated by “Corporator” Mr. Lokesh Nayak (Councilman Ward 116) who appreciated that CHF International is raising awareness through students who will help to educate parents as well. Students in craft classes learned to make paper bags and distributed 350 bags to households during the rally with a message to replace plastic with paper and reusable bags. Over 500 community members and students renewed their commitment to keep the Rajendra Nagar and LR Nagar neighborhoods clean and to protect the environment. The students held posters displaying the message and also performed a street play to demonstrate how to segregate garbage at home and to promote the reuse and recycling of materials.

On September 28, volunteers from Jyothi Nivas College and InterfaceFlor India helped with a clean-up campaign in Kormangala. As many as 130 volunteers removed recyclables and food waste from Kormangala area during a three-hour period and all recyclables were taken to the Kasa Rasa waste management unit.

The week of amazing activities and hard work ended with a well-deserved celebration on Saturday, September 29 to recognize the winners of a number of competitions designed to promote the spirit of the Green Apple Week of Service. CSA organized a video competition on, “A Green Campus: How My Institution is Green” and a street play competition on waste management. Winners were selected from several entries - five schools participated in the video competitions, five colleges in the street play competition and 10 teams from the community participated in a collage competition. More than 150 students took part. Participants received tokens of appreciation by the visiting dignitaries who congratulated the winners in all categories with prizes and certificates.

This week, I had the extraordinary opportunity to attend the Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, a gathering that brings together leaders from around the world and encourages them to make a commitment to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the global community.

USGBC's mission is nothing short of building a better world, so we spend a lot of time thinking up game-changing ideas. And we had one ready to share with CGI this week, a new initiative that I'm so proud of: Green Apple.

Green Apple is a new, global movement from the Center for Green Schools at USGBC that aims to give all children a school environment where they have clean and healthy air to breathe, where energy and resources are conserved and where they can be inspired to dream of a brighter future. We all know what an apple a day is supposed to do. Well, the goal of Green Apple is the same: to make sure kids are spending more time in the classroom and less time in the doctor's office.

USGBC has long championed the green schools movement. In 2010, we established the Center for Green Schools to drive the transformation of all schools in America into sustainable and healthy places to learn, work and play. We took on this work because the importance of green schools simply can't be overstated.

In the United States, more than 25 percent of Americans walk into classrooms as students, teachers, staff or administrators. But instead of walking into places of opportunity, millions of these people are stuck in buildings where the air is filled with toxins and mold, where classrooms are poorly lit and overcrowded and where resources are limited and outdated.

More than 20 percent of public schools report having unsatisfactory indoor air quality -- which can make kids sick and aggravate asthma. But when toxic chemicals -- often found in paint, flooring, furniture and various products used for maintenance -- are eliminated, students and staff report less eye, nose and throat irritation, and asthma-related incidents decline.

Of course, the benefits of better schools extend far beyond the health and wellbeing of students and staff. They ripple out to the entire community, and even the entire world. Schools are arguably the most important buildings in any community, in any city, in any country. And by making our schools more sustainable, we're creating something that's not only better for learning and teaching, but also better for budgets and for the planet.

On average, healthy, efficient schools save $100,000 per year on operating costs -- enough to hire at least one new teacher, buy 200 new computers, or purchase 5,000 textbooks. Just think: if all new U.S. school construction and renovation went green today, the total energy savings alone would be $20 billion over the next 10 years.

These schools also lessen environmental impacts, conserve scarce resources and give the next generation a firsthand lesson about the importance of being responsible environmental stewards. They have an important long-term impact on local communities by creating opportunities for people to develop needed skills for the new green economy.

You can probably tell that I'm passionate about sustainable schools... and there's a good reason. My wife, Cathy, is a public school teacher and lifelong educator. I have a front row seat to all that schools do for our kids, our communities and our future. That's why I'm so committed to taking the green schools movement global through our Green Apple initiative.

It all starts this Saturday, September 29, with the first ever Green Apple Day of Service. We're bringing together thousands of advocates from around the world, including students, teachers, parents, elected officials, organizations, companies and more, to take action through local service projects at community schools. More than 1,100 projects have signed on in all 50 states and on every continent. It's going to be a great day. And it's just the beginning.

The future is being shaped each and every day in classrooms around the world. Businesses get that this is something they can do about improving education, and companies such as United Technologies Corporation and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and others, are partnered with us to help schools and students implement positive change.

So let's make our schools safe and sustainable places for the next generation to learn and inspire them to do the same for the planet they'll inherit. Because where we learn matters.