Earlier this year, Pepsi made a responsible decision: instead of spending $20 million on Superbowl ads, they would spend that $20 million on projects and charities that needed it. The project is called Refresh Everything. Every month, they’re going to give out grants to community projects and they expect to fund thousands of local efforts this way. In my own opinion, it’s a fantastic decision that shows good corporate responsibility, and I’d like to see more of it!
And, we’d like to see our community get some of that assistance. TEDxRochester 2009 speaker, Larry Moss, has a project that he’s been looking to get kicked off for some time, and Refresh Everything might just be the vehicle needed to do it. It’s called Elastic Park, and as a science geek I love it. It’s a 10,000 square foot exhibit inspired by Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Imagine: near life-sized recreations of dinosaurs from the Triassic through the Cretaceous made entirely out of balloons!
The project is educational, to be sure, but the real benefit comes from the community involvement when it arrives in town as dozens of volunteers are needed to bring it all together. As Larry discussed in his talk, his work brings communities together to reap the benefits of their own hard work. This is an amazing project, and Larry already has all of the resources in place to get it off the ground, he just needs funding.
To help, please visit the Refresh Everything website, sign up, and start voting! We’d really like to see a lot of referrers from the TEDxRochester website up there. Voting for this round begins February 1st. Stop by the site ahead of time to sign up for an e-mail alert when voting is open.
The video for the project is embedded below. Don’t forget to also follow both Larry and Elastic Park on Twitter to keep up to date with their progress.
Best of luck to you, Larry!
Geva Theatre Center
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