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Types of Projects: A Rainbow of Green • 55

Green by Green by Project Green by Product Green in
Definition Impact Impact General

Although there is significant overlap, there is a “spectrum of green” for projects.
See the text for examples.

Figure 4.2
The “green” spectrum.
based on models from Canada and the United States. It was a fully func-
tioning nonprofit with the appropriate tax status, board of directors, and a
rented warehouse (the former Gold Seal Creamery) before a drop of paint
was ever accepted, in 1994. The reason the Paint Exchange was started is that
no one else was doing it and it needed to be done. It was determined that it
would also be a likely candidate to receive one of Entergy’s Environmental
Matching Grants of $1,000. They did receive the grant, did the research, and,
before opening their first Saturday paint collection, they sent press releases
tied to miniature paint brushes out to the media. They immediately got a
huge response, including all of the neighborhood children showing up. So
the first Saturday also turned out to be the beginning of the Children’s Art
Program—volunteers from Ben Franklin High School’s Green Society found
flower pots and old chairs out behind the creamery, and got the children
painting. After this, every Saturday that they were open they organized art,
and later gardening, projects of some type for neighborhood and customers’
children. A short time later, the owners of the creamery gave them the use
of the empty land in the middle of the block, and the Green Project started
both a community garden and a Green Project garden, and sold herbs and
vegetables from the latter at the Crescent City Farmers Market until the
organization found a new home in the Marigny.
The Building Materials Exchange was also started at the creamery after
receiving the first of EPA’s sustainability grants, and it soon became the
largest component of the Green Project, necessitating the move a few years