This holiday season, the Dogwood Alliance is thankful for –GRASSROOTS ACTION!
Last Tuesday, November 25th, right before most of the country departed
for dinner tables and family homesteads far and wide, our No Free Refills
campaign turned up the heat on some of the biggest fast-food junkies – Wendy’s
& Arby’s.
So, picture this – you’re the newly appointed C.E.O. of this mega-huge fast-food
corporation that owns and operates two tasty hamburger joints. You’re moving up
in the world, you’re feeling good, you’re even getting ready to take a vacation
and hang out with your family for Thanksgiving. But – ! Not. So. Fast. You’re
office is getting flooded by calls from the public. They’re coming in from Ohio, they’re calling from Virginia
and North Carolina, they’re dialing out of Georgia, Pennsylvania,
and Florida.
And they’re all demanding that your company Change! Its! Ways!
Man, what a rush! On the ground in SouthEast Virginia,
I had the pleasure of helping to facilitate a handful of these calls going in
to C.E.O. Roland Smith. We were talking to people about Mr. Smith’s corporation
turning entire square miles of our local forests in Virginia into one-time use paper packaging
trash and people were getting antsy to do something about it! Seemed simple
enough to just give them Mr. Smith’s number directly.
Throughout the day hundreds of calls were made from all over the country. The message most
people left was pretty basic – Wendy’s & Arby’s have no excuse for using
our forests for their trash. All they have to do is switch to using more
recycled material, more sustainably certified paper, and downsize the amount of
trash they’re generating in the first place. And these customers were always
right!
So, this Thanksgiving the Dogwood Alliance wants to thank all the committed and
engaged activists out there helping to send a message loud and clear to Roland
Smith- No Free Refills for the Forest!
And we hope that Mr. Smith took their voices with him to the Thanksgiving table. Some
dark meat, some light, a side of broccoli, and a whole lotta Grassroots Action!
