A Brief History of the Project

(This reflection is written with a sad but grateful nod to Stephen Hawking, on his passing)

Location

The Earth Day Groceries Project began during the infancy of the world wide web. It started out as an  email activity in the spring of 1994, but by August, 1994, it had a web site. Well, sort of.

When I decided to try and develop a website for my elementary school in the summer of 1994, there was literally just a handful of schools worldwide with websites. As a matter of fact, it felt to me as though you really wouldn't put a school on the web without being able to say what was outstanding, or unique, about it.

This graphic was on the very first website for my old school. The Project was the school's byline, its reason for being on the web. That was August 14, 1994. The Project's name still needed some work. The main content of the website was a compilation of the Project's emails, and that version of the website is preserved, and still working, here.

By October of 1994, the school website had evolved,and the project had its new name - still featured on the school website graphic  That site is archived here.

The Project remained on the school website through the 1999 school year, even running an ad, proceeds going to the cost of upgrading the Project, and to school tech needs.

Format

For the first three years, I compiled all email reports and sent them to all participants in large email installments. When it became clear I could no longer keep up with sending hundreds of participating schools different email installments, I converted them all into web documents (coding by hand), and put them on the website.

If you visit the Read Reports page, you can see all those emails, and their compilations:

1999 Reports
1998 Reports
1997 Reports
1996 Reports
1995 Reports 
1994, the first year:
Reports, initial announcement, more...

Upgrade

In 2000, I moved the Earth Day Groceries Project to its current location, where it runs multiple databases to automate the adding, retrieving, and sorting of information. No more email, thank goodness. Now, if the pictures had been automated, that would have been something! More on that in another post.

Vision

The early 1990s was an exciting time to be online with other educators, exchanging ideas on educational listservs, like Ednet, and Kidsphere.

In 1993 I tried decorating grocery bags with my school, and it was a huge success. It was such a perfect, easy way to empower kids in their communities, such a great way to make a difference in environmental awareness.

I wanted other schools to join in,  to make it bigger, even make it something that belonged to my school, but I could not figure out how to do that, and somehow - control it. My wife set me straight right away when she said I simply had to share the idea. That was all. Give it away.

She was right of course, so I did just that - shared the idea. I simply acted as a facilitator for those who participated, and I provided a central location for anyone who wanted to share their stories.

Now

Every year, I hear from several people saying their school/organization has been decorating grocery bags for Earth Day for many years, and they just learned there was a website!

This Project has legs, and it will continue to grow and spread - because it is easy, free, meaningful, and it carries a powerful message.

I hope your school or organization can join in this year. Happy Earth Day!

Mark Ahlness, founder  - The Earth Day Groceries Project

http://www.earthdaybags.org/
https://www.facebook.com/earthdaybags/
https://www.flickr.com/groups/earthdaybags25/