The Annual Phone Book Recycling Contest begins today and ends March 27, 2009.  Nineteen local schools have signed up to participate in the contest to win a cash prize for the books they collect through funding from AT&T, Real Yellow Pages, Allied Waste and the Sacramento Recycling and Transfer Station.  The school that wins will also receive a recognition party and participate in a tree planting to celebrate their recycling efforts.  Last year 21 schools participated and collected over 40,000 books.

Sounds like a win win situation, get rid of your old phone books and help schools raise money.  If you want to help you can give your old phone book to a student at one of the participating schools or drop them off yourself.  For more information and a list of the participating schools click on this link to the cityofsacramento.org/utilities or call (916) 808-5454.

Sacramento Students Recycle Phone Books

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Today is Dr Seuss’s birthday!  Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 - September 24, 1991) was an American writer and cartoonist best known for the over 60 children’s books he wrote under the pen name, Dr. Seuss.  He used rhyme and imaginative characters in his popular books.  Some of his most notable books include the best selling “Green Eggs and Ham”, “The Cat in the Hat”, and my personal favorite, “Oh the Places You’ll Go”.

Who knows where January went and February is just a blur it went by so fast, we’re already in March.  As we march into the third month of the year we always think about the “Luck of the Irish” and Saint Patrick’s Day.  ”Living green” is all the rage these days, but Saint Patrick’s Day is the day for “wearing green”.  My research tells me even though Saint Patrick’s Day is the National Holiday in Ireland, this ”wearing green” might be more of an American thing than Irish.  The story goes that the tri-color Irish flag has green representing Catholics, orange representing Protestants, and white in the middle representing peace between the two groups.  Since Protestants don’t celebrate the Saints, the holiday known as Saint Patrick’s Day began mostly as a Catholic holiday and since the green of the flag represented Catholics thus the “wearing of the green”.  Another story says that Saint Patrick was originally associated with blue and that wearing green started with people wearing a sprig of the shamrock plant on the holiday which has three leaves to represent the trinity and became the wearing of the green.  Who knows how the whole thing got started let’s just have some green beer and enjoy it.

Parades are one of the most important ways we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day.  The first one we know about in the U. S. was held in Boston in 1761 and New York City had their first in 1762 when Irish soldiers in the English military marched through the streets with their music.  The parade in New York City these days has 150,000 marchers and about 2 million spectators.  That’s a lot of celebration!  Speaking of parades, March 17, 2009, will mark the 13th annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade right here in Sacramento complete with the sound of bagpipes and Irish dancers.  The Parade is presented by the Old Sacramento Business Association and several thousand people are expected to line the boardwalks of Old Sacramento to enjoy the parade.  All the streets in Old Sac will be closed to traffic beginning at 5:30PM; a reviewing stand will be located at the intersection of Front & K Streets.  The parade will start at Lot W next to the California State Railroad Museum and wind through the streets of Old Sac finishing at Front and J Streets.  So wear your green, grab the kids, and head on down to Old Sac to join the fun. 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day