Green Streets welcome's East Cambridge's Wellington-Harrington neighborhood's new bicycle shop!  Hub Bicycle Co. is located on the corner of Cambridge Street and Willow Street and is open for business as of February 1, 2010.  Check back here for more details of Walk/Ride Day Grand Opening Event on February 26! And, when the weather starts to warm up, expect some Walk/Ride Day neighborhood bike rides.

Stop in and say hi to owner and mechanic Emily Thibodeau. Tell her Green Streets sent you!

On January's Walk/Ride Day (January 29, 2010), if you Wear Green and Go Green you can enjoy a FREE cup of hot chocolate at the Kendall Square Community Skating Rink!

The offer is good all day! The rink is open from 11am-9pm.

12-2pm will be a great time for Green business networking at the Kendall Rink. If you come for a lunch time skate, you will likely run into Walk/Ride Day participants from the many local companies.  We have been in contact with the Kendall Square Business Association, the East Cambridge Business Association and employees at Genzyme, Vertex, Microsoft, Alnylam and Archemix to let them know of the offer.

Evening at the rink is also a wonderful gathering time! The rink is lit up with hundreds of tiny lights in the surrounding trees and you might forget you are just a few blocks from the Kendall Square T stop.  Kendall Square Rink is a fun, local night out and we hope that we see some new faces and lots of Green hats and gloves.  Liz Powers, a Harvard student and LIFT volunteer plans to be there with some friends and we have spread the word to local schools and universities.

Download Skating flyer: free hot chocolate and networking:

Download Day at Rink Flyer - regular

“The Go Green Walk/Ride Hot Breakfast in Harvard Square”
January 29th 2010 from 7:30 am – 9:00 am
At Oggi Gourmet (inside Holyoke
Center, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue)

The Go Green Hot Free Breakfast in Harvard Square is a Celebration of the Green Streets
Initiative’s “Walk/Ride Days” program. The event is co-sponsored by the Harvard
Square Business Association, Oggi Gourmet, JP Licks, Boloco and the
Charles Hotel and is part of the Harvard Square Winter Carnival 2010 from January 12th
– February 28th.

"Join us for Breakfast Burritos from Boloco
where it’s not about being
“green” (and certainly not about being Certified Green,
which we are and which we are proud of, but is not the point). It’s
simply about using our restaurants to make our planet a better place. Today,
it’s corn cups and bamboo bowls. It’s naturally-raised meats and
organic tofu. It’s composting and recycling and reusing building
materials. Even the yawn-able stuff like LED lighting, low-flow waterheads, and
Paperstone tabletops and countertops make a difference today. Tomorrow, who
knows – the list will only grow. One thing that we do know, we’ll
be there. Quietly leading the pack and slowly blazing the trail. Doing our part
to help the earth without making a big deal of it. One baby step at a time. One
burrito at a time.

Pastries for the event will be provided by Chef Davis
and Henrietta's Table. As the hotel's
Executive Chef, Davis enthusiastically supports local farmers and local
fisherman, buying only products that he hand-chooses with the assistance of
local purveyors and refusing to use genetically-engineered food. He is a member
of Chefs Collaborative – a group that partners with local farmers,
ranchers, and artisanal producers to develop new systems that allow them to
stay in business while providing farm-fresh produce directly to kitchen doors.
He purchases food from artisanal producers who he believes are preserving
valuable traditions, sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, humane animal
husbandry and well-managed fisheries. In 2006, Henrietta's Table purchased over
$175,000 in food products directly from Farmer's and over 85 percent of its
food purchases came from companies that share the philosophies of sustainable
agriculture. The Charles
Hotel also implements a
comprehensive recycling program in partnership with Save That Stuff, a local
compost service. All trash is sorted for biodegradable and compostable waste
and is picked up three to seven days a week, depending on production.

Coffee for the event is graciously donated by JP LICKS! JP
Licks utilizes various recycling programs for their containers, including their
homemade ice cream.  In an effort to lower waste, they promote a discount
when any travel mug is brought in for coffee. JP Licks began roasting coffee at
the Firehouse in Jamaica Plain in 1999 and has been churning it out ever since.
They roast down the middle; dark enough for a hearty brew but not so dark that
every bean tastes burnt.  The Harvard Square
location features five roasts daily, and carries over twenty assorted one-pound
coffees for sale.”

Oggi Gourmet will
create Breakfast Pizzas for our Go Green participants. Oggi has a long history
of recycling and green practices and has been kind in offering us the use of
his space for our Go Green Breakfast!

For more
information about this event www.harvardsquare.com

Robin Lapidus

Director of Marketing and Events

Harvard Square Business
Association

rlapidus@harvardsquare.com

www.harvardsquare.com

617-491-3434

In anticipation of more snowfall in the coming weeks, Green Streets, in
partnership with the Cambridge Post Office and Tromp, is sponsoring a
fun contest to encourage people to shovel their sidewalks. Cambridge
Walk/Ride Day coordinator Sarah Fresco says, "Not only will your
neighbors travel more easily
and safely when you shovel, but your block might win "The Best Shoveled
Block in Cambridge Award!" Residents or visitors are invited to enter
their own or others' blocks; residents of the winning block will be
invited to a reception at the Central Square
Post Office on Walk/Ride Day in March.

Download Best Shoveled Sidewalk Flyer (pdf)

Green Streets is challenging us all to
further increase their participation to ten Walk/Ride Days in 2010 and is sponsoring a 2010 Walk/Ride Day Art
Challenge: Document 10 Walk/Ride Day experiences in 2010 through
drawing, painting, photo, video, poetry, or any other creative means
and then submit them and come to a gallery celebration in 2011.

There
will also be a year round program of Walk/Ride Day events
that will bring different parts of the Cambridge community together to
Celebrate Walk/Ride Day. More details to follow soon!

Download 2010 flier with Calendar, Notes and Art Challenge, b+w, for schools (pdf)

Download 2010 flier with Calendar, Notes and Art Challenge, color, for schools (pdf)

Please let us know (walk-ride-days@comcast.net) if you would like any a version that can be modified for your business, etc. 

We will have the wonderful opportunity to acknowledge your efforts, share refreshments, meet city dignitaries, and have gifts galore from many of our sponsors, city officials, and  Green Streets ourself. See below for invitation!

RAFFLE: Please come to receive your award, and to enter our amazing door prize raffle! Among the prizes will be

• 3 knitted hats by Sarah Fresco, Cambridge Walk/Ride Day program coordinator
• crocheted beaded bracelet made by School Committee member Nancy Tauber
• Molten chocolate cake, to be baked by School Committee member Patty Nolan expressly for you!
• 2 autographed books from Frances Moore Lappe
• a $100 cash card from Millennium Pharmaceuticals
• gift cards from Eastern Mountain Sports
• Green Streets paraphernalia including shirts, bike safety vests, pins and more
• gift certificates from Bonny's Landscape
• $100 gift certificates from Urban Adventours
• Tickets for upcoming performances of the North Cambridge Family Opera (Springtime for Haman) and CD's from past performances (Powers of Ten, Lifetime: Songs of Life and Evolution), DVD's from past performances (Kids Court, Antiphony)
• tickets to the Omni Theater at the Museum of Science
• 3  month membership to the Cambridge YMCA
• $20 gift certificate to Petsi Pies
• $25 Kid's account donation from Leader Bank
• $20 gift certificate from Dream On Futon
• 9 "Greener is cleaner" USB drives
• and more…!

Please pass on to your colleagues, school community and others! Here are some documents you can use:

• 9 in 09 Celebration Invitation (.pdf)

The
first session of the Cambridge Climate Congress took place on
December 12th. Over 100 people from all corners of our city attended
and many people commented how great it was to see so many new people
at the table. The first session was all about bringing our ideas and
our perspectives to the table. We all share an understanding of the
emergency and a knowledge that past efforts have produced results.

Legislation
and technological innovation will play a role in addressing the
problems of global warming but individual and community actions will
play a huge role here in Cambridge, nationally and
internationally. Cambridge Climate Congress has agreed that one of
our goals is that everyone in the Cambridge community be aware of the
emergency and that everyone plays a role in making life style changes
and in community decision making.

As
we move toward the second session in January where we will come up
with a plan of action for the city, I know that Walk/Ride Program
has an important role to play. We have already been successful at
empowering people, changing habits and bringing together people from
different parts of the community for work on a shared goal.

- Sarah Fresco, Cambridge Walk/Ride Day Program Coordinator

Sarah Fresco made a presentation about the Walk/Ride Day Program to the seniors at the Cambridge Senior Center on December 3rd and extended an invitation to the Mayors "9 in 09 Reception" on January 11, 2010 to them.  Each day about 50 Cambridge seniors eat lunch and attend programs at the Senior Center. The vast majority of them travel to and from the center using Green Transportation.

Many of the seniors do not currently use the internet, so the Senior Center will be posting a list of the discounts available to seniors who "Wear Green and Go Green" on Walk/Ride Days.

  Green Streets has the great opportunity to participate in Boston's celebration of World Usability Day at South Station earlier this month. The event focused on sustainable living, and featured many interactive activities and interesting displays. Attendees had recycling races, voted for their favorite Boston bicycle maps, and tried folding bikes. It was fascinating to learn about this field and to meet so many interesting people with whom we hope to be in touch!

Check out their website to learn more and click here for more photos of the event!

Stores and restaurants in Harvard Square, Inman Square, and other squares across the region, will be rewarding Walk/Riders this November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, with hot cider, freebies, discounts and other goodies! Stay tuned and check our sponsors pages! Go green, shop green… contribute to our local economy while not contributing carbon to our atmosphere!