Big Green Party 2015 Recap

Wow. After a rescheduling, months of planning and tons of running around, the Big Green Party happened.

Thank you to our sponsors, partners, co-hosts (Sustainability Nexus) and incredible volunteers for pulling the evening off. It was certainly a group effort.

And more importantly, thank you to every one of you who attended (200+ of you!!). It was an incredible group of people and we’ve been hearing a lot of great feedback on the evening.

Big Green Party Highlights

Miss the action? Follow the Hashtag #BigGreenParty on Twitter and Instagram to catch up on everyone’s amazing reviews and photos.

We got to take to the mic to share about a few various programs happening with Green Philly & the Sustainability Nexus.

We were happy to recap the past few years of Green Philly, and talk about new exciting things in store for 2015. We’re bringing industry experts sharing updates on the blog. You probably noticed our new column, Socially Conscious Media, helping businesses get the word out on social media.

Most exciting, we announced we’re officially offering Social Media Services to businesses. We offered attendees a special “Social Media Tuneup”, which includes a review and suggestions of your current digital campaigns. We’ll extend the offer to you awesome readers, too. Just email contact@greenphillyblog.com to find out more information and get started.

 Our Co-Hosts, the Sustainability Nexus, talked about their various projects, too!

Max Zahniser announced the Sustainability Nexus’s mission. (According to their website), with 250,000 and 500,000* environmental and social justice organizations throughout the world today, there’s a lot of redundancy, confusion, and unnecessary competition. Nexus aims to connect these dots – virtually AND physically bringing together organizations, and current & future pioneers and leaders from across the movement.

Drew Foulkes, manager of the Citycoho event space, talked about 1 year of Citycoho’s opening. He loves his job and wearing ringmaster vests, as pictured.

Seema Pandya talked about the Living Art Nexus program. Along with Zahniser, the Living Art Nexus will be curating online and in-person exhibits that address ecological system health, economic resilience, and social justice. Artists’ residencies and collection development will be added to the list of activities in the coming years. The goals of the program are to trigger additional discourse around sustainability and offer more opportunities for expression, symbiotic relationships, increased awareness, and mindset shifts.

Sara Allen discussed, SPARC, the Sustainable Philadelphia Alliance of Regional Campuses. SPARC will help connect students with sustainability and share resources to a wider audience.

What’s your 2015 green resolution?

At the end of my speech, I asked the crowd to Tweet their 2015 Green Resolution with the #BigGreenParty. Here’s some of the answers.

What small changes can you make? the Big Green Party Tablers’ can help!

Our awesome tablers for the evening included local changemakers the Humane League, Solar States, Choose PA Wind & Generocity. Pick a 2015 Green Resolution with one of these guys. Thinking of giving up meat, even a few days per week? The Humane League Philly helps get more of us on board with healthier & more sustainable diets, like their Meatless Monday campaigns in Philly schools. Thinking of switching to cleaner energy? (Signing up for PECO energy alone provides your living space with dirty fossil fuels & natural gas.) Solar States & Choose PA Wind both have amazing programs to power your home with renewable, clean energy. Solar States installs solar panels on homes, businesses & commercial buildings. They also have a Solar Leaders program, where you can support new solar projects.   Choose PA Wind provides an array of options to get PA wind energy. Sign up by January 31st with these special rates & program details. Generocity talks about Social Impact across the Philadelphia region, and hosts amazing Twitter Chats (like our #BigGreenParty chat last week!)

Big Green Party – Fun for All

Thanks to everyone who flocked to 2401 Walnut on Friday evening. As you can tell from the Photobooth photos, many of the attendees let loose after a long week at work, like our friends at the GREEN Program here: Our lovely sponsors, Kristina Beese & Tom Williamson of the Beese Knees, gave out all of their incredible Ice Cream Cupcakes to the party and posed for a few photos with friends. (Stay tuned to learn more about this delicious startup TOMORROW on GPB).   With plenty-of-props to choose from, sustainable cuties from across Philly struck a pose:

The face behind William Penn on a bicycle & Green Philly’s entire new looksey, is the fabulous Katherine Friedgen. She’s pictured here (left), with Leslie Hudson, another friend & GPB guest author.

And then Philly Jesus showed up, just in time to face off with the “Devil”. (Memo: We do NOT think any animal-lovers like Rachel Atcheson from the Humane League are evil – quite the opposite, actually!) I don’t know about you, but I definitely think this group selfie beats Ellen’s Emmy attempt by a mile. And as Mo Manklang said it best:

Craving more recap?

You can see all the Poseybooth Photos here on our Facebook page (and tag yourselves, too!)

The impromptu shots are also viewable on Facebook here.