Monthly Earth Day by Crypto Whales NFT: Using Monthly Earth Day to clean up the world and on-board non web3 users through live events and global/local collaborations

Introduction

Monthly Earth Day is a Public Goods Environmental Impact movement. Monthly Earth Day is a global movement I created Sept 22, 2022 that has resulted in over 30K trees planted and over 1-2 thousand lbs of trash cleaned up in year 1. The goal is to grow the community worldwide and on-board new users to web3 and public goods through awareness and education while directly making the world a better place.

Purpose of Monthly Earth Day

There are two main actions that people choose to do to help with climate change: Planting trees/plants and cleaning up trash. The major benefits to both of them are as follows.

Reducing Pollution: Cleaning up trash helps prevent the trash from entering waterways and the soil which harms habitats and ecosystems and could harm human health. By also planting trees, they can absorb carbon and pollutants which can improve the air and water quality for all.

Conserving Habitats: Removing trash and planting trees will create a healthier ecosystem for plants, animals and humans by providing a better living area and possible food source. This helps protect animals and their habitat and preserve biodiversity.

I am also using Monthly Earth Day to show people that no matter the size of action they choose to do, it matters and contributes to a larger impact through collective efforts around the world. This is shown to the world by posting pictures of impact to the main post that I create on X the 21st of each month. I host a space on X on the 23rd to go over the results and give recognition to the participants.

Use of Grant Funds

• I will be using the funds to help with hosting/collaborating clean up events
  • Tear Drop Signs for the clean up events
  • Supply green clean up bags for participants
  • Gloves for participants
  • New and replace broken trash grabbers
  • Gas for driving long distance to the large clean up events
  • Merch/stickers to hand out to participants to raise awareness to others
  • Stickers to sell at local shops to help with additional income

Accomplishments/Updates since October 2023

• About 1,918 lbs of trash cleaned up and around 1,368 Trees planted/funded as well as 230 plants.

• Partnerships gained:

  -We Try Better for submitting pictures of impact.

  -Evergreen Coin for earning tokens for proof of impact.

  -Local HOA to set-up live clean up events and help with improving our community landscape to make it more sustainable and environment friendly.

• Gave out $EARTH to people that have been consistently participating for more than 2 months and plan to continue to give to those who create impact each month.

• Collaboration with GreenPill Denver on a successful live clean up totaling 8 bags of trash cleaned up with 3 non web3 participants and 5 web3 participants.

• Created a Monthly Earth Day informational flier.

• Increased the MED poster to over 120 accounts. (https://ibb.co/8d1JVs1)

• Started hosting weekly spaces on X to raise awareness and educate on ways to create a positive impact.

• Funds from the previous round have been used so far for creating stickers that were handed out during ETHDenver and gained some attention for MED. I am also saving the rest of the funds to build up in order to create large stand up signs that I can bring to the clean up events.

Challenges

Some of the challenges that I continue to face is consistency in participation. There are currently about 5-15 consistent participants each month. One of the ways I am looking to improve this result is by hosting more live clean up events. This will bring people in from the local community that may not know be on X or know about web3. The first live event that I hosted with Greenpill Denver brought in 3 non X users that didn’t know anything about web3. I created a page on Facebook which will bring in more eyes and more participants.

Another way I will increase the participation locally is by continuing to work on my partnership with the Natural Areas department. They have a program that involves the school districts and I will be attempting to get into the schools and teach about sustainability and environmentalism. Children are very impressionable and usually when they care about something or learn something new, they go home to their parents and want to get them involved.

Additionally I would like to continue to provide $EARTH tokens to those that consistently participate as a "Thank You" for creating positive impact.

At the moment I am in talks with the local news station and they are interested in doing a story on their morning show where they will interview me about Monthly Earth Day. This will bring in a lot of attention and views. Between creating my Facebook page and having a news spot, this should grow the monthly participation and interest.

Year 1 Results

• Grow participants monthly to 100+
• 30,000+ trees planted
• 1,000+ lbs trash cleaned up
• 2,500+ Matic donated to environmental charities Monthly Earth Day Growth

Future Impact

• Create Hypercerts for each live trash clean up event.
• Continue to grow the MED community participation each month to grow the global impact.
• Submit pictures of impact through an on-chain option (evergreen coin, littercoin - openlittermap.com, etc.) for proof and measurement of results.
• Local partnerships and collaborations on events will help with education and awareness as well as on-board new people into web3/refi.
• Rebuild my discord to help reward submitting proof of impact and doing good deeds.
• Build a website to show Monthly Earth Day impact.

About The Founder Nick

My name is Nick and I am big on nature and wildlife. I live in Colorado and have always had a passion for being outdoors, whether that was hiking, camping, fishing or snow sports. I have always had a strong interest in helping others/the world somehow. After trying many different jobs and industries figuring out how I can create the most impact, I am here. I decided while I am out enjoying nature, the least I could do is clean up the trails on my way back to the car. That is how the idea started.

I am a one man team and that is why I will be continuing to focus largely on live events and building partnerships/collaborations to scale Monthly Earth Day.

This is my second time joining the Climate Network round for Gitcoin and all I want to do is make sure I am helping make this world a better place than it was the day before. I am also showing everyone that they can make a difference no matter the size of action they choose to do. On a collective level, everything matters and helps create a positive impact.

Thank you for making it this far and I appreciate your time and donations!