Eugene

It’s Official, Eugene Coffee Company on 18th and Chambers to host the Eugene Carrotmob!! Congratulations Eugene Coffee Company!! Everyone, please come out and enjoy the fun and show your support for green business in Eugene on Halloween of 2009 from 9-noon.

Voting for the Eugene Carrotmob will end at midnight on October 27th. We are excited about the amount of interest, with nearly a thousand votes and counting!

Carrotmob is a network of consumers who buy products in order to reward businesses who are making the most socially responsible decisions. Want to find out more or get stoked? Watch the original Carrotmob video from San Francisco on YouTube.

Eugene’s Carrotmob will occur two weeks after it was originally scheduled. The new date (9:00-Noon on October 31st) will give us the time we need to put it on.

The competition is tough for the Eugene Carrotmob and a lot of people have been asking how to get involved. Three coffee shops have gone head-to-head (Eugene Coffee Co., Gary’s Coffee, and Perugino’s) and have put their mojo on the line. Here is what you do to get involved.

1) Watch the videos below and decide which store will do the most to save energy, buy locally, recycle, waste less, compost, educate, support the community.

2) Vote, using the voting tool below.

3) Finally, and most importantly, go to the winning store on October 31st between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm!!!

Eugene Coffee Company

Gary’s Coffee Shop

Perugino’s Coffee Shop

Thanks for your votes and support, and here’s a few bonus videos for your enjoyment. See you at the Carrotmob!

Carrotmob Eugene Educational Moments

Behind the Scenes with Carrotmob Eugene

It’s been awhile since the last update on Carrotmob Eugene. Many of you were probably wondering if you missed out and it was all over or if all the enthusiasm had just petered out. The fact is that neither is true. Behind the scenes there has been a bustle of activity. Here are a few of the things you should be aware of:

• Due to the importance of students to the Carrotmob, we have moved the date of the Mob back to allow them/you to get back to town and into the swing of the school year. The date and time of Carrotmob Eugene will be October 31st, 2009 9am to noon.

• Adel has been busy working on the Carrotmob videos. There was so much good content and strong commitments to change that it was hard to get them down to a reasonable length. They are slated to be out for public viewing and voting on October 12th, 2009. Be sure to vote for your favorite!

• The official Carrotmob Eugene T-shirts are in stores! After a frantic design phase and fierce debate on the best design we came up with something really cool. Adel’s brother Emil Wilson donated his talent for the design and EWEB sponsored the cost of the shirts. These cool, organic t-shirts are a must for the fall fashion season, and are available at the three Carrotmob participating coffee shops (Eugene Coffee Co., Gary’s Coffee, and Perugino’s) for a meager 10 bucks…I’m getting two. All proceeds go to the winning store.

Travis Showing One of the Carrotmob T-shirts Off. Photo Credit: Vladimir Romero

I’d like to send a special thanks out to the “Behind the Scenes” CarrotMobbers. Because, you know, we’re all about appreciation, support, and kudos as a means of making change.

First, we’ll start with Adele Wilson-Hamaker. Without Adele we would not have the amazing video footage. This woman has been spending her dear, precious weekends to film and then edit the stories together so we can all watch and vote. And besides, she looks so good with all that gear on… I think she might really know what she’s doing!

You can find more of her work at www.meandherdesigns.com.

Here we have Travis Reeder, one of the EWEB (Eugene Water and Electric Board) employees. Travis not only has an extraordinary on-camera presence, but he helped to decipher the cost vs savings piece around changing out lights from incandescent to fluorescent as well as determine the rebates that EWEB is willing to give back to the store owners for their efforts towards energy reduction

And then there is the infamous Caroline Cummings. Thankfully we have a social media guru on our side to help spread the word of the CarrotMob gospel. Without her our Facebook page would be sad and our followers would be few.

You can find out more about Caroline through her blog.

Brooke Standifer has been caught chatting it up with each one of the coffee shop owners about the importance of the word “Local” in the supply chain. She’s also been helping to explain the benefits of purchasing items that have the highest content of recycled material. Most importantly, she stole a plastic carrot from a 4 year old so we could use it as a prop in during our filming. Now that’s what I call takin one for the team!

Angie Marzano is another EWEB extraordinaire! Thanks to her talents in energy efficiency, we were able to not only help out the three coffee shops participating in the CarrotMob but many other coffee shops and restaurants alike. Angie has been working with Roscoe Divine from Midtown Marketplace on rebates and lighting at Midtown Marketplace as well as a couple other buildings owned by Roscoe. The cool thing about EWEB is their rebate programs. Too many business have yet to take advantage of this FREE money for updates, upgrades, and upward growth.

And then there’s the hidden gem of Eugene’s recycling community, Carolyn Stein. Seriously, Carolyn knows it all when it comes to what you CAN and CANNOT recycle. She works with Bring Recycling as their education director. Thankfully, Carolyn brought the gloves, the tarp and the knowledge to sort trash at the 3 coffee houses. (One might say that this was a dirty job… but like the custodian in The Breakfast Club, she is the eyes and the ears of those 3 shops. She knows all….)

And then there’s Stella. What would we have done with out the Assistant Director? During her days, Stella spends her time at school, most recently learning about Marilyn Monroe and water usage. (She says that the average person uses 150 gallons of water a day! phew.) Stella, helped Adele white balance the camera, set up the tripod, and get the coffee. Sheesh. Everyone needs a Stella around!

My name is Katie Wilson-Hamaker. I guess you could call me head CarrotMob organizer. What do I do in my spare time? Host CarrotMobs, work for a really freakin cool company called Arcimoto doing marketing. We make electric cars. It’s just way too much fun.

So we’re all sort of feeling the swoon over local press. You know, the kind where you need to put on your Jackie-O glasses just to make sure that you don’t get inundated with fans asking for autographs? While we’re thankful to our local KEZI station for the boost in press, the AMAZING story, and the prime time airing of our future CarrotMob event, our hand muscles are starting to get weak from the signatures. You’ve heard of Carpal Tunnel, right?

Check out this picture of Sue Harnley from Eugene Coffee Company. This is a photo of the calm before the storm…

Anyway, we just wanted to say thanks to all of you who are following us, thanks to all the amazing people at CarrotMob World Headquarters, and thanks to KEZI for Carpal Tunnel. If you haven’t had the chance to view our amazing footage (what rock did you just come out from under?) you can view it on the link below.

CarrotMob Eugene

Also, a huge thanks for playing goes to Kaz Ovessi at Peruginos, Brenda Cervantes at Gary’s Coffee, and Sue Harnley at Eugene Coffee Company.

Stay tuned and we’ll be posting the videos right here, so you can VOTE on which coffee shop should get the Mob!!!!