The program addressed water conservation methods, how to reduce household waste and electricity usage — basic lifestyle choices for the average environmentalist.
“There was nothing we really learned,” Schechter said, adding that she’s been passionate about environmental issues for years. “But it was the power of having our friends and neighbors together.”
Conceived as a way to reach out to friends and family, word of the green tea parties has spread among the social networks of the women who started the group, and their audience has slowly grown, she said.
At the group’s fourth green tea, held in a private Sparr Heights home two weeks ago, guests mingled over a spread of cheese, crackers and grapes. With glasses of wine and strawberry- and lemon-infused ice water in their hands, they were already engaged in the types of conversations the Green Team hopes to start.
The crowd was slimmed down by Back to School night at nearby Fremont Elementary School, but all 10 guests who showed up left with a gift to help them help the environment — reusable grocery bags, eco-friendly house-cleaning soaps, etc.
Each item had been a prop in a presentation — five ways to go green with your family — given by Schechter, fellow co-founder Vicky Hebert and Tracy Leventhal, who hosted the last gathering.
Holding one of more than a dozen donated Whole Foods reusable grocery bags, Leventhal urged guests to follow her lead and do away with plastic bags, even though it invites inconvenience.
“I do it, and almost 99% of the time I don’t bring them into the grocery store from the car, and I have to run out and get them, but I figure it’s one little thing I can do,” Leventhal said.
