First Annual Green Source Environmental Leadership Awards Tuesday Evening

Seems like just the other day we were commiserating with some fellow activists about the lack of infrastructure in the DFW environmental community. Here we are in the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area and yet the amount of staff and resources and institutions doing or supporting basic environmental work is still the same as it was 20 years ago. It doesn’t feel like the movement has grown up here the way it might in Houston or Austin. So we’re looking forward to attending the first annual Green Source Environmental Leadership Awards being held at Dallas new “Eco-op” space near White Rock Lake from 5:30 to 7pm Tuesday. After over a month of online balloting, the top three vote-getters in each of three categories are now in contention for top honors and a nice cash prize of $500. It’s about time DFW had this kind of community-building, cross-denominational annual rite of recognition for green good works. And the nominees are…in the Grassroots Group/organization category, In-Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue, your own Downwinders at Risk, and the Plano International Festival. In the Volunteer category are Josephine Keeney , Katie Jensen, and Downwinders’ board member and Arlington Conservation Council activist Grace Darling. In the Entrepreneur category it’s Bonnie Bradshaw with 911 Wildlife LLC, our good friend  Thomas Kemper of Dolphin Blue paper products, and Heather Rinaldi of the Texas Worm Ranch. Finally in the For Profit / Business Professional category, there’s Tom Bazzone with Green Living, Grier Raggio of We Consume Too Much, and Mitch Fine of Earth NT. It only costs $25 bucks to attend and it benefits a local group that’s trying to build a network that wasn’t here before. In our book, local folks have already won.