Happy Tonics has been selected again as a candidate for the April 1 – 15 VOTING PERIOD with Brighter Planet. Our Grant Proposal Native Habitats and Community Gardens in Shell Lake, Wisconsin, needs your VOTE at
We are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) Environmental Education Organization and Public Charity. Officers and board work for free.
Please take a minute to REGISTER on BRIGHTER PLANET and VOTE for our Grant Proposal. Thank you for helping us create a world of beauty for today and the future.
Native Bumblebees on coneflower
Our work is dedicated to helping the littlest of species the pollinating butterflies and native bees that need our help. We grow native habitat and crops to promote biodiversity which pollinators depend upon.
I just watched a video of the Shuar Indians of Ecuador who knew that their world was disappearing when the outer world started to invade the Rainforest. I lived in the Amazon along the Napo and Misahualli River in the late 1970s. Please learn more here at http://www.pachamama.org/content/view/262/97/
Lady sitting in Guadamala copyright by Sue Sill
I am asking for your VOTE so that we can adapt to climate change with native habitat and community garden in Shell Lake, WI, USA. It is not that far away from Ecuador in the dream time. The Shuar say, “The North needs to change its dream.” Materialism is causing all kinds of harm to Mother Earth known as ”Pachamama” in South America. We need to start to grow our own local and organic food and protect and plant native habitat for all species be it plant or animals. Man cannot live without the natural world.
What a great weekend. Thank you one and all for voting on our grant proposal at Brighter Planet. Happy Tonics now qualifies for another chance at the brass ring in the future because we got 100 VOTES. The nonprofit realizes that we are up against some pretty stiff competition. New Orleans is in the lead with their grant proposal. Winning the Super Bowl Sunday was a wonderful success. Well done Saints.
Good news! February 8, the Washburn County Public Property and Land Sales Committee granted Happy Tonics permission to plant a raised bed garden at Friendship Commons, the senior center, in the summer of 2010.
Libby loves being a butterfly
Girl Scout Troop Number 4392 (MN, WI Lakes and Pines) will plant, grow and maintain the garden. Seniors will be partners in this intergenerational activity. A grant from Leopold Education Project and Pheasants Forever are funding the project. Happy Tonics believes that all sustainability projects are accomplished from the ground up. A community that can feed itself is sustainable.
The garden will be a teaching garden. We teach through the monarch butterfly who is the canary in the coal mine. What happens to the butterfly can happen to us.
Even a little grant is a big thing to a small nonprofit. We volunteer for Happy Tonics. Won’t you help us spread our wings to teach others to adapt to climate change?
We offer the Morph Your Mind Environmental Education Program. Our classes, events and two native wildflower and butterfly gardens are nature’s outdoor classrooms where we teach others about the importance of native crops and plants as native host and nectar sources for the monarch butterfly and other pollinators. The natural landscape supports life. Monoculture and invasive species are replacing native habitat. Native habitat is the only habitat can withstands drought conditions and climate change.
We’re almost there at 81 VOTES at 9:10 p.m. Only 19 more VOTES to go till we reach 100. Yeah Team! If you are watching the results and have voted once, you are entitled to two more votes. Each voter can vote three times. If you are new please REGISTER AND VOTE AT http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/100 for Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake.
Got Milkweed? Sign made by Matt with DNR Grant
Wild milkweed meadow Go Wild with Butterflies
I thought you might be interested in the DNR Monarch Butterfly Habitat that Happy Tonics has land use for a seasonal habitat. Just look at the milkweed. Native milkweed is the only host plant of the monarch butterfly and this meadow is full of milkweed. Here is a photo of our sign that Matt made last year with a small grant from the Spooner DNR.
Today we want to thank Paul DeMain, Editor of News from Indian Country, for voting and passing the word along. Please read Nick Vander Puy’s interview with Dawn White on the Importance of Water.
Happy Tonics is a co-sponsor of the Environmental Film Festival. We heard from Belinda Bowling, Owner Innkeeper, Casa Escondida Bed & Breakfast in Chimayo, New Mexico at http://www.casaescondida.com/
Sandy Stein and I had the pleasure of staying at the Casa when we were exhibiting at Tesuque Pueblo, New Mexico, in 2008. Facebook friend Amy Lou Jenkins, author of Every Natural Fact Five Seasons of Open Air Parenting also voted for our grant proposal. The book has not been released yet but can be pre-ordered. We like to make friends all along the way. So many individuals have emailed to say they have voted and we are deeply honored. You never know who your friends are until you need them.
Till tomorrow, keep up the good work. REGISTER AND VOTE for Happy Tonics. We love hearing from you.
REGISTER AND VOTE FOR adapting to Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden. We have 68 votes as I write. I am pleased. Only 32 more votes and we’ll be at the 100 mark. This is a landmark because it means we’ll be in the running to apply again if we don’t reach our goal this time.
We have 12 more days to go and we are campaigning for our cause. Anything can happen. Just look what happened today. We received a grant for $250 from Leopold Education Project a Program of Pheasants Forever. This will help fund a raised bed garden for Girl Scout Troop 4362, Minnesota & Wisconsin Lakes and Pines in Shell Lake.
Expect the unexpected to happen in life. Things could change over the next 12 days. Happy Tonics could gain the notice of some large environmental group that can sway votes our way. One can only hope. Remember change has always come from the ground up. Here’s your chance to prove it. Thanks!
Thank you Crossroads Resource Center, MN; La Cruz Habitat Protection Project, Inc., TX; Destination Marketing Organization, WI; Yellow River Advertising and Design, WI; Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad, WI; Dyer Design, VA and countless individuals who are VOTING for our grant proposal at Brighter Planet.
Happy Tonics members Patti Gardner, PA; Cindy Dyer, VA and Janice Organ, WI voted. Friends on Facebook are voting AND writing on their wall to ask their friends to VOTE. Friends on MySpace are voting. It takes all of us to implement change in adapting to Climate Change.
We are counting on YOU!
Seed in time regenerates the Earth.
Happy Tonics is so appreciative to those who are helping us carry our sustainability work forward. Our Mission: Sanctuary for the Monarch Butterfly and Food Safety Issues.
Happy Tonics needs your VOTE to help us do our work. Officers and Board Members give of their time to educate and implement programs to adapt to Climate Change by promoting Sustainability of Native Plants, Monarch Butterfly and other pollinator habitat. Our mission is: Sanctuary for the Monarch Butterfly and Food Safety Issues.
Native bumble bee on autumn sedum
small square foot garden
We are a small grassroots nonprofit that needs your help to WIN our Climate Change Native Habitat and Community Garden Shell Lake grant proposal.
This is not Happy Tonics first attempt to bring Adapting to Climate Change into national awareness.
We were honored to participate in the Green Effect grant process with National Geographic sponsored by Sun Chips in 2009. Although other worthy causes won, we believe that each of us must do our part to bring the message of adapting to climate change home. (National Geographic, Green Effect Winning Ideas for a Better World, November 2009, insert after pg. 6.)
He walked away from corporate America and sports sixteen years ago to head up a growing business. His main goal is to grow soil at his working farm Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is all about community gardens and we need to get growing in each community. Visit http://www.growingpower.org/
When we realize that it takes nearly 1 gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just 1 pound of conventionally fed beef (Mooallem, 2009), we might start to realize we need to support local farmers and grazers. Meat taste like meat when it is wild harvested or grass fed. Biofuels made from crops have been responsible for up to 75 percent of the 130 percent increase in global food prices in the past six years (Weltz, 2009). Food is not fuel and should never be taken out of the mouths of people and diverted to another profit making purpose.
It is interesting to note that college campuses across the USA are starting to introduce local grown food right into the cafeteria. Tim Galarneau, is cofounder of Real Feed Challenge, a national campaign, wants to introduce 1,000 universities and colleges to buy 20 percent of their food by 2020. Tim will still be actively working long after I retire. It is good to know that youth are stepping up to the issue now. Communities need to learn how to grow their own food so they can feed themselves in the future. Josh Viertel, the 31year-old president of Slow Food USA says, “It’s just this incredible outpouring of energy to do the right thing.” I feel confident that Tim Galarneau and many other young activists will lead the way to sustainability.
Are we too little too late?
At the same time we need to keep our eyes open and on global food security and climate stress now that climate change is knocking at Earth’s door. Please take a few minutes to listen to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack speaking on Agriculture and Climate Change in the video at http://vimeo.com/8137485
He spoke at Agriculture and Rural Development Day, on 12 December, 2009, a day-long event at the University of Copenhagen with more than 300 policy makers, negotiators, producers and leaders from the agricultural and climate change scientific community. Unfortunately many believe that genetically engineered crops are a possible solution to end world hunger and the second Green Revolution has begun. By listening to this video, we are staying informed and hearing about the world’s challenges to these paramount issues.
Mooallem, J. (2009, March-April). Veg-o-might. Mother Jones, 36-37.
Weltz, A. (2009, March-April). Trouble on the Limpopo. Mother Jones, 44-47.
Viertel, J. (2009, March-April). Tray chic, Mother Jones, 47.
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My Name is Butterfly
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