If getting a free iPad would be a life-transforming moment for you, here's the way to make that happen: Tell
Sustainable Pittsburgh what relatively recent, region-altering event made Southwestern Pennsylvania what it is today.
The effort to gather – and reward – your ideas is called the Tipping Points for Sustainability Competition. The organization wants to know what, or who, changed the face of the Burgh and surrounding counties over the past decade. It might be a momentous event, a fresh face in leadership, some new organization or even a really big screw-up that nonetheless set good things in motion.
The group is looking for entries that pinpoint the milestones that brought this area closest to one (or more) of
14 sustainable community development essentials: everything from energy conservation and food security to Main Street revitalization and recycling.
If you like that list, you'll love the list of prizes, which includes a two-hour tour of historic Pittsburgh from the Young Preservationists Association, a free design for a community rain garden or bioswale from the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Penn State Center-Pittsburgh, free admission to the Pennsylvania Resources Council's backyard or vermi-composting workshop and Watershed Awareness/Rain barrel Workshop – and more.
"We've had a number of insightful entries to date," says Sustainable spokesperson Ginette Walker Vinski. "There are still many tipping points out there, however. All it takes is a brief pause to remember some of those game-changing moments that truly made a difference here in our region. You don't need to be an expert in sustainability to determine what good has happened in your community over the last ten years."
And entering, via surveymonkey, is easy, she says. Deadline is Oct. 1. To enter, click
here. Winners will be announced at the 10th annual Southwestern Pennsylvania Smart Growth Conference – Regional Collaboration: Investing in Sustainable Communities on Oct. 15.
Writer:
Marty Levine Source: Ginette Walker Vinski, Sustainable Pittsburgh
Image courtesy of Sustainable Pittsburgh