By By JESSICA SIEFF / Niles Daily Star
This weekend, as plenty of spectators are expected to pack Riverfront Park for this year's Bluegrass Festival and fill the streets of Niles while taking advantage of some beautiful weather, they can do a little multitasking – helping the environment at the same time.
Visitors and residents can also take advantage of an opportunity to ease Niles' carbon footprint.
By making 'carrot' prints.
Carrotmob, an example social activism that encourages businesses to commit a portion of the sales from one designated day to eco-conscious improvements to their businesses by building a base of consumers willing to spend their money at those businesses – is coming to Niles, Saturday, June 6.
Niles Main Street's Lisa Croteau announced the event in April.
"It's a way that a regular consumer can help a business go green," she said Thursday. "It's a win-win."
The idea behind Carrotmob is not only to get people to begin thinking about more environmentally and socially conscious choices but to get businesses to begin thinking about those ideas as well.
The businesses pledge 22 percent of the sales brought in through Carrotmob – just one day – toward retrofits and improvements to their businesses. Organizers promote the event, building a base of consumers who will make purchases at those businesses.
A typical Carrotmob event focuses on one business only. The Niles event, however, is embracing its downtown businesses, with a list of participants that includes Veni's Sweet Shop, The Paris Soda Shop, The Nugget Downtown Grill, Color Me Christian, The Doll Shop, My Biography, Your Kitchen Connection, Sentiments and Majerek's Newsstand.
"We're going to have a map," Croteau said. "Sending them up the street to the Carrotmob businesses."
Consumers who stop at any of these businesses on Saturday will see their money go towards a variety of improvements.
"The city is planning on coming out with some incentives for businesses," Croteau said.
Other actions participants can consider: making the switch to energy efficient light bulbs, weatherstripping, foam pipe insulation or picking up faucet aerators.
And every little bit helps. Even if 22 percent of what is brought through the door amounts to just $100, Croteau said it's still $100 "to invest. You can really make wonderful changes with your light bulbs, with your weatherstripping…"
Already the mission is showing that it's working.
In preparation for the event, Croteau said Linda Skwarcan, owner of Veni's Sweet Shop researched options of changes she would make at her store. Her search revealed a company that makes biodegradable pens. Used for jotting down orders and given out to clients as a method of advertising, choosing the eco-conscious pens is a "socially conscious business move" Croteau said, by keeping countless writing instruments from storing up in landfills.
"They're just reinvesting in themselves," Croteau said. "Fun things like that is what we're trying to do."
Ideally, Croteau said she'd like to see the event become something that is executed quarterly.
"It's something we need to do and this is just a way to get everyone thinking about it," she said.
The original Carrotmob event focused on one convenience store in San Francisco, a type of business where consumers could find something that they would need to spend money on anyway.
The businesses taking part in Niles' event serve the same purpose, providing consumers with a choice of where to spend their dollars – on what Croteau said are products and services that those consumers are going to need anyway.
"Now you're assured by the commitment from these businesses," that the money will do some good.
Money, she said, that goes back into "saving the world."
For more information on the mission, visit www.carrotmob.org. To take part, stop down at Riverfront Park on Saturday during the Bluegrass Festival and pick up a map to designated stores.