Odds are your kids will come home from school today with a globe made out of either macaroni, paper mache, or just a pile of glitter (which will show up for weeks in your bedding, on your TV remote, and in your cereal bowl). This means that either your child’s teacher has an affinity for sphere-shaped crafts OR it could be Earth Day (which it is…don’t let your five year old show you up with national holiday knowledge!). But Earth Day is about so much more than crafts—it’s about recognizing the importance of protecting our environment.
Earth Day was started in 1970—the year of bellbottoms, the breakup of The Beatles (still upsetting), lava lamps, and long hair. OWC was started in 1988, and the world was slightly different—there was more spandex, larger hair, bolder colors, and things were “radical”. And although hair (and lots of it) seems to be a theme for both the birth year of Earth Day and of OWC, we have more than just that in common.
This day and every day, OWC shows the Earth love through our environmentally friendly facility. We care about the air by being a 100% on-site wind powered, zero emissions facility. We offer many “green” and energy efficient products for you to help reduce your own Carbon Footprint. We take care of the land through our recycling efforts to reduce garbage in our landfills. This year, we helped bring clean water to those less fortunate through our campaign for charity : water. With your help, we were able to raise $74,774 to help bring clean water to 3,988 people in Ethiopia! We seriously love our planet—in fact, it would be safe to say that in addition to our OWC Blue, “green” is the unofficial color of OWC!
And like OWC, Earth Day has certainly grown over the years. It is now celebrated in 192 countries worldwide, and that makes sense—Earth is something we all have in common. Despite all our worldly conflicts, at the end of the day we are all affected by the health of the planet. Earth provides us with water to drink, air to breathe, and soil to grow food, and as in any good relationship, there has to be a give and a take. (In fact, your relationship with Earth might be much easier than your actual relationship…Earth doesn’t tell you to turn off the TV and go to bed, or yell at you when you forget to pick up the dry cleaning). We have to take efforts to help protect the resources that Earth has given to us.
Earth Day is actually a paradox of sorts—it makes us realize how small we are in the scope of the planet, but what a big difference each of us can make by taking a few small steps like unplugging appliances when they are not in use and recycling. We want to make these changes because it’s undeniable—when we wake up to see a bright orange sunrise, breathe in the smell of spring and flowers, or dip our feet into the clear water of a lake, we realize that Earth’s beauty is truly remarkable. And we should preserve that for generations to come.
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