Lauryn Stalter's April Update

The Black and Gold City Goes Green campaign made some big strides this month toward having a greater presence in the community. We’re now equipped with professional-looking handouts with the campaign actions for the year that we can give to anyone interested. I entered our first two monthly videos in a local film contest, where one made it to the final round (but didn’t win, sadly). I was invited to speak on a local podcast/radio show called Positively Pittsburgh Live. The theme of the night’s show was “The Greening of Pittsburgh” in honor of Earth Week; the Black and Gold City Goes Green was featured alongside some big environmental hitters like the Green Building Alliance, Ecko Green Technologies, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority. This month we also made tabling appearances at the Pitt Student Symposium, 10,000 Villages, and PennFuture’s Global Warming Conference.

The Black and Gold City Goes Green campaign’s Youth Community Partners are finishing their semesters, so I’m helping to compile videos for each of the three groups involved in the program. One of the groups at the Kingsley Association studies compost piles and rain barrels; since composting is one of our yearly actions, the footage from this school will also be used for next month’s video.
We’re currently holding our breath for a promising grant that will enable us to plan a big blitz event this year. Next month’s blitz in Mount Washington is coming up fast, and with very few volunteers signed up so far, we’ve been doing some serious recruiting. Everything else for the event is falling into place nicely; we’ll see how it goes on May 7th!