Solano Green Alliance's first Solution Salon report

[Janna Besh]

We opened our doors to the community, but had not done a press release , invitations, or any other advertising so our turn out was very small. I thought, well, if one person shows up, then that is a success... and well, two people showed up. So it may have been a small success... but I wasn't feeling very successful. But realized the errors we had made. Duh, you have to invite people, not just announce it to the Nation on-line. Thank goodness I made soup for about a hundred... so that was sort of silly too. It was a good batch though, and we froze it for the next event. We are learning as we go. This is a work in progress. We got some good ideas from the people that did show up. And we are marching bravely forward with these projects. Our town has had a busy weekend : Fighting Back Partnership did a big blight removal project, this same weekend, and they also received some funding, so we were very glad to hear about that. There are other Organizations in our area, that currently are involved in these areas as well, so as information comes in we will try to keep you posted. We had a funny thing happen that day : Our motto is " Be the Change, Go Green". So we had decided that we were going to have a coin hunt, calling this " Hunt For Change". We carefully wrapped coins in green tissue paper, to hide in the long grass of the garden so that people could hunt for them, for prizes. At the end of the day we realized we should gather them up. However, we could not find more than half! So I guess you could say, in more ways than one, we are still looking for change in Vallejo. You have to start somewhere right? And starting out very small, was not a bad way to begin, because change has to start somewhere.

[Janna Besh]

The great news is that Van Jones has a position at the White House. Go Van!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!