To the Media Specialist and Science Department,

Thanks to funds from the General Nonprofit Grant Program at the Town of Cary, Toward Zero Waste is excited to gift your school with three copies each of two impactful books, Drawdown and its follow-up, Regeneration. We feel access to these books is crucial to inspiring hope and youth engagement on climate issues as the books offer real, substantive and achievable solutions.

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming was released in 2017, edited by Paul Hawken and is a hopeful look at climate change solutions. It was a project that hundreds of scientists and researchers worked on and continue to work on. A former scientist/science teacher at East Cary Middle expressed that she had been teaching Climate Change for years, but it wasn’t until she started teaching out of Drawdown that she stopped getting deadpan looks from students and started seeing hope and action. It is the book that prompted the Town of Cary Environmental Advisory Board to draw up its Carbon Recommendations a few years ago and it is still helping guide the town’s climate plan, which is beginning to see real movement.  Drawdown has an accompanying website. Several additions in the form of reviews available digitally for more detail and updates.

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation is Paul Hawken’s latest project. It is a new release and also has a website that is intended to be a constantly updating extension of the book. It too focuses on solutions and showcases solutions that are happening now and can be recreated in the reader’s spaces and places. 

Toward Zero Waste would also like to help teachers engage in youth programming that could accompany the books to ensure they are utilized by students. Possibly a youth-led webinar or documentary screening. TZW offers a mini-grant to youth wishing to do a local environmental project.  We would love to see these books utilized in these projects. We invite you to contact us for more information on the grant and/or ideas for engaging with these books.

Please see this short video for an inspiring message about action from Will Grant.

Toward Zero Waste is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting waste-conscious living in North Carolina through inspiration, education, and action.

Sincerely,
Toward Zero Waste Cary, Cary Community Directors

Megan Holler  
megan@towardzerowaste.org

Leigh Williams
leigh@towardzerowaste.org