Today we write about a company that has learnt about us and our blog posts via Charles Orgbon and decided to give this opportunity a try. We are talking with Margie Campaigne, the owner of Project HOUSE/Green Irene (Household Opportunity to Upgrade & Save the Environment).

She began working on the HOUSE project in the 1970s in an attempt to make households realize and reduce their use of resources such as energy, water, gasoline, packaging materials, etc. She then joined the Global Warming & Energy Committee of her local Sierra Club in early 2007, when she realized that the goals of the HOUSE project and the goals of the Global Warming & Energy Committee were exactly the same. Therefore, Marge decided to bring this project in the 21st century and turn it into a website. „By Earth Day, 4/22/07, Project HOUSE was live.” we love this expression.

But the adventure only began here. Later on, people who were introduced to Project HOUSE asked Margie if she could come into their homes to give personal assistance with becoming greener, so she began to investigate how she might do that, when I discovered Green Irene, LLC. Green Irene was a green project with the same vision and similar goals, the only difference was that they had training and green products to offer. „I took their training in January 2009, and have been active ever since, doing a number of Green Home Makeovers, selling green home products, and tabling at many eco events in the area.”

So, what does HOUSE do? In a few words, but big ideas, it promotes the reduction of our individual, household, community, commercial, and government carbon footprints. This is done by some using the website to help people find tips on how this can be done, by having Margie present at workshops or other events, or having her come to people’s home or business to perform a Green Makeover. What is a Green Makeover, you may ask? (So did we…) „That includes a total assessment of the savings opportunities available throughout the home, yard, and/or business, and then offering recommendations and green products.”

Regarding the green-ness of the person behind the company, Margie states „I am absolutely green!” and it couldn’t be different. She has been eco-conscious for over 30 years. In 2006, she also had a major amount of work done to her home to make it more energy efficient. The result of this makeover that she did to herself is as it follows: „I now have a year’s worth of data on the resulting energy savings, from my local utility’s website showing my home’s energy use over the past two years. My gas usage in terms decreased by 25%. My electricity use in kWh decreased by 44%. Not too shabby, and I still have things to tweak!”

She admits having some help from a couple others on the Sierra committee, and from people she met, who were also presenting green workshops where she was presenting, but this was at the beginning so Margie is „on her own” now and is doing more than great!

In terms of advise, whether to open a green business on your own, or not, her mind speaks simply, but so very eloquent: “Do some research, follow your passion, and go for it!”

This has been the interview for today. Margie taut us that there is nothing you can’t do if you are passionate and consistent about it, so go and get Green!

P.S. Also, on our Facebook account, you can see a story on Margie and Project HOUSE/ Green Irene on CBS News.

Today we continue our Go Green All the Way series with an interview we took to Charles Orgbon, Founder and CEO of „Greening Forward”, an absolutely remarkable person first and foremost for the fact that he is a CEO at the young age of 14.

Charles first started „Greening Forward” when he was only 12 years old and his company is based on educating people in the green spirit, sometime by the power of self-example, sometimes only with kind words or encouragements.

Upon seeing how much litter is on the streets of North Georgia, and in the world in general, and also when he saw the many ways in which nature is neglected by people in general, he took the leap and started this company, which is specialized in educating the masses into living a greener life.

„We work specifically with education, inspiring, and empowering global citizens to make a difference in their environment. We do this through our informative and popular website and community programs. Greening Forward works with school environmental groups, community groups, and other non-profit to pull off events like litter-pick ups, graffiti paint overs, letter writing campaigns, and financially supporting many other events.” says Charles, proud of his accomplishments.

Their organization has gradually grown over the years and also, what is the most important at the moment is that they are in the early stages of planning to apply for 501(c)3 status and this is a huge step. Furthermore, they are trying to help the community by offering a few jobs that are available at this moment. You can see them here: https://sites.google.com/site/greeningforward/employment-oppurtunties.

Being so young of age, Charles admits that he needed the help of some grown-ups to support him and get him where he is today. „I began this organization by myself I had 7 e-mail newsletter subscribers ,but now I have 100 subscribers and 1,200 social networking supporters, two volunteers, two person staff, and 10 board members.”

We must admit that is a lot of work involved in this project, especially coming from a 14 year old High School Student. And such an ambition!.. He first began with an interview at a local TV station but now, 2 years later, Charles in known world-wide as the boy who helps the environment.

When asked about his competitors, he answers as simple as snow: „There are a lot of non-profit organizations like us out there, but how many are managed by a High School Student?” Moreover, his advice to anybody who would want to start a green business is the following: Networking. „You might not be in directly contact with people who can greatly benefit your campaign, but there is someone you know who knows someone. It’s these invaluable connections will help strengthen your work.”

Charles found out about Greenweb on the social platforms – Facebook and Twitter, and we have been talking ever since we got to know each other. One one thing we can say about him is the following: he is an amazing person!

Hello there dear friends,

This is an open letter to all of our friends. As you have seen from the title of the blog post, we interrupt the „Go Green All The Way!” series yet again, so that we can make some statements.

Ever since we began the GreenWeb project, we have received a lot of criticism (and we don’t mean constructive criticism by that) at what we do, and also a lot of „this is not good/not helping nature/ this is only your financial gain and interest” insults (because we consider this insults).

Well, our statement is the following: We are here to stay! We are not here for the money, we are not interested in the fame of being a member of the green word-wide community, and we also do not claim we are perfect in what we are doing.

We have already created our small community of readers, of friends which are interested in us, in our activities, in our articles and we do not want to lose or disappoint them. When we started GreenWeb this spring, while we were doing our researches for the platform and the blog, we saw a green organization, we won’t say it’s name, which, due to the lack of finances was about to close. A number of people were to become unemployed, and the NGO was about to disappear from the face of the earth. But the community that surrounded this NGO stood up and made donations from their own small or big salaries, or maybe from their vacation funds, who knows? The NGO resolved the financial issue, they grew larger and bigger and that was all possible due to the big hearts of the community that surrounded them, due to the kind hearts of people like you.

We were so touched by this event, that we set as a goal for ourselves to have a community that would hear us, help us, and stick to us whenever we would need it. This is our dream, our goal, our target and we try to do as much as possible daily in order to achieve it.

This is our goal, this is our objective for the near future, we don’t care about the money, the publicity. Instead, we want you to feel you belong with our friends.

We want to thank you for supporting us so far, thank you for reading us and thank you for being a FRIEND.