Well, I had another ezine issue in process to send out today, but then Ann and I decided to attend the local Earth Day festivities at Blue Ridge Community College, so today's issue will be relatively short and sweet and dedicated to this marvelous planet on which we live.

It was affirming to see how many earth-friendly measures we have taken plus we left with many new ideas and with the inspiration to put them into action.

During the trip, Ann shared with me about Oprah's Earth Day show she watched about two families that did a 'wife swap' type switch. One family was 'green' and earth friendly, while the other family had next to no attention on the impact they were making on the planet.

The husband of the second family position was all too common — "What real difference can our one family really make on the environmental issues we're facing." (I'm paraphrasing)

Hearing this reminded me of one of my favorite stories.

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The Boy and the Starfish
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One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”

The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”

“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?  You can’t make a difference!”

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…” I made a difference for that one.”

To me that's the most important shift we must all make.  Moving our level of thinking and consciousness from 'Little ol' me can't make a difference' to 'I can, will and do make a difference.'

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An Easy Step — FreeCycle
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So, in closing let me share one of Ann and my favorite ways to help out Mother Earth.  It's called the Freecycle Network™ — it's made up of 4,793 groups with 7,208,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

It's one of the neatest piece of evidence that each of us can make a difference and turn our environmental issues around before it's too late.

We're given a bunch of perfectly good 'stuff' that was either left at one of our rental houses or that we've had around here and no longer need. We've also received everything from Amber getting two beautiful pairs of shoes for her senior prom, to a like new set of dishes that she plans to use when she sets up her own household, to plants for our garden.

We recently created a Freecycle table outside where we place the items that have been claimed, and in celebration for Earth Day we've placed three recycle bins under the table — one each for recycling cell phones, rechargeable batteries and regular batteries. Our effort to make recycling in our community just a little easier.

So, why not check it out to see if there's a Freecycle in your area?

And if there's not one around, why not start one?