Mission Statement: Green Drinks Greensboro addresses sustainability, the natural environment and how they connect to social justice, human rights, and other critical issues.
About:
Green Drinks Greensboro is an organic networking event, an open space for people to meet, share ideas, hopes, dreams, mutual projects and activities. We bring a lively mixture of people from community organizations, government representatives, NGO’s and many others working on the interrelated issues of sustainability and climate justice. We aim to build linkages among people working together to turn ideas and shared interests into mutual practice and projects. We are part of an international network happening in over 700 cities worldwide. Green Drinks Greensboro was established as a grassroots organization by Brian Higgins, who set up a partnership with Sustainability Greensboro and many other local businesses and organizations.
After Higgins left Greensboro, MaryEllen Etienne took over the organizational responsibilities of the collaborative with her organization, Reuse Alliance. When MaryEllen left for a job in a different state, Kathe Latham of Transition Greensboro took over the reigns and eventually pulled in Sarah Dorsey from the Sustainability Film Series at UNCG and Nicole Spivey from the Piedmont Plateau Sierra Club. The three meet and decide events collaboratively and are open to others joining in the planning process.
Originally, Green Drinks focused more on social networking and met at different local bars throughout Greensboro. In the last few years, the collaborative took a more organized stance by meeting monthly at Scuppernong Bookstore in downtown Greensboro and are expanding their reach to include programming from local organizations, speakers, films and presentations.
Each month, the group meets on either Thursday or Friday nights, generally between 5:30-7:00 p.m. They begin with 20 minutes of networking, introductions, a short presentation and aim for another 20 minutes of dialogue and discussion.
“We aim to be an open space for people to present their projects, plans and ideas with enough time for people to connect with each other and hopefully spur new relationships and mutual projects,” Latham said.
Green Drinks Greensboro’s e-mail list is maintained by [email protected]. Events are organized by the collaborative and posted on the Sustain-l listserve.
To sign up for notices, send a message to the list serve asking to be placed on the mailing list.
Green Drinks Greensboro welcomes everyone to join these events. For dates and times, either check the group’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Green-Drinks-Greensboro-532133783526425/ or look for an upcoming Sierra Club Piedmont Plateau Group Meet Up page for upcoming events.