"Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Mahatma Gandhi
It's hard to believe it's already a year since we launched EcoFriendly Sask. As with any new venture, we had high hopes. The reality was that it was slow to gain traction. At several points we discussed whether the small impact was worth the effort. We almost folded. But I'm glad we kept going.
Recently we started our EcoFriendly Action Grants program. We were reluctant to do this at first because it didn't fit our original plans of just being a publication. But I'm glad we did; it has already been very satisfying. It's great to see the proposals come in and to be able to support them. So far we've given out almost $9000 to 14 different projects. I could have given that money to some big environmental organization, but that wouldn't have helped any of these local grassroots projects. As the saying goes, think globally, act locally.
It's not the best time or place to care about the environment. Canada is one of the worst of the developed countries, and Saskatchewan is one of the worst of its provinces. People who care about the environment are being labelled dangerous radicals and compared to terrorists. It's hard to be optimistic, but we can't give up. We only have one world, and all we can do is try to protect it.
-- Andrew McKinlay
