Green Is the New Black Friday
Greenheart Shop helps you make or find eco-friendly gifts
By GINGER ZEE
Updated 6:59 AM CST, Fri, Nov 28, 2008
It's back! The Black Friday trample-and-trip one another time of year. One local gift shop, though, is taking on a different color today -- not black, but green.
"It's called Green Friday. We're offering it as an alternative to the Black Friday," said Katherine Bissell Cordova, manager of he Greenheart Shop in Chicago.
Instead of going to a big box store, the Greenheart Shop offers a day to create rather than consume.
"We're inviting people here for a variety of workshops we're offering where they can make their own gift using everyday items: old sweaters, old T-shirts, old jewelry, and old newspapers to create their own eco-friendly gifts," Cordova said.
If you aren't feeling creative, the Greeheart Shop is still a great place to grab a unique gift, and there is an extra bonus: all gifts are fair trade.
"We really feel when you give an eco-friendly fair trade gift it's really giving twice, because you're giving a beautiful gift that is very reasonably priced and you're not just giving it to one person -- you're also supporting living wages and environmentally sustainable practices in other countries that really need it," she said.
So if you do it to save or you do it to support local business, either way, try gifting green on the retitled Green Friday.
"The pull here is that you will be getting unique gifts that are breaking out of this mentality; this kind of mindless mass consumption of goods that are really hurting the environment and the people that make them," Cordova said.
First Published: Nov 26, 2008 9:51 AM CST
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