I remember when I moved to Portland more than seven years ago and thought that all the local grooviness was cute: people recycled everything, hiked religiously, and scarfed down honey-sweetened Indian pudding (or is it Native American pudding?) at the Common Ground Fair.Being macrobiotic, I sort of fit in; I was at least putting organic food in my body and preaching harmony with nature. Last year, I even bought a hybrid car. But my grooviness only goes so far; I watch Dr. Phil almost every day, and am ashamed to admit I don’t compost. But even if I fixed all that, I’d never go as far as some of the people I know in this town; I have friends who met the cow they ate last winter. Others who started a farm camp to help kids learn about the earth ‘n’ stuff. And a local midwife who runs a community supported agriculture farm with her husband. Al Gore would be proud.
Speaking of our ghost president, his recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, is hopefully raising the country’s grooviness alert to red, or at least orange. So, although seven years ago I might have found something like SunriseGuide merely cool, now, it feels urgent.
While on vacation in the Pacific Northwest in January of 2005, Portlander Heather Chandler saw a coupon book for healthy living: “I came across the Chinook Book and just fell in love with it. I thought, ‘We need to have something like this in Maine.’”
So, being a Portlander (i.e., deeply groovy,) she started one up herself: SunriseGuide, which will be making its debut later this fall. It includes six chapters (food and dining, home and garden, health and outdoor living, fashion and personal care, community and entertainment, travel and transportation), plus a special section on climate change — all dedicated to exploring what it means to live in a healthy and sustainable way. It also explains which resources are available to support that lifestyle.
Then come the coupons! All the products and services offered have to meet certain environmental guidelines that show the product or service is a better alternative for the environment, such as a regular hardware store offering a coupon for a compact fluorescent light bulb. These product-specific coupons make many Maine businesses eligible to participate and show off their green sensitivity.
It turns out Southern Maine is a good place to live a 21st-century, Al Gore lifestyle: we have a bunch of community supported agriculture farms (12 in York, Cumberland, and Sagadahoc counties alone) and thriving farmers’ markets. Says Chandler: “Portland definitely has a large percentage of folks who are interested in living in an environmentally sustainable way and I think that that is just becoming more and more so. Last year, we got some great national recognition: Outdoor magazine called Portland a dream town and Vegetarian Times named us one of the greenest cities in America.”
