Contact:

Tim Razzaq, Founder and Executive Director

Building Open Opportunity Structures Together (BOOST)

23 West Street, Bordentown, New Jersey 08505

(206) 202-2883

timrazzaq@gss-set.com">timrazzaq@gss-set.com

www.gss-set.blospot.com and www.gss-set.com

New Jersey Organization, BOOST,

Acknowledged for environmental stewardship

Trenton, New Jersey – GenGreen™ has named Building Open Opportunity Structures Together, also known as BOOST, as a Featured Organization on the GenGreen Network, www.gengreen.org in the New Jersey tri-state region.

GenGreen chose BOOST and their fast-growing network of individuals, organizations, businesses, and institutions, for their outstanding efforts in the promotion of sustainable living through their commitment to community stewardship.

GenGreen selects organizations that they feel set an example in their communities. GenGreen chooses these companies to acknowledge them for their efforts in environmental stewardship. Being named one of The GenGreen “New Green Leaders” is a highly sought after title that GenGreen is pleased to give to the BOOST Network.

As an example of its innovational approaches to bridging the information gap between professionals in the field and the communities who are impacted by their plans and decisions, BOOST is launching its New Jersey statewide environmental education and training program and part 2 of BOOST series of public awareness forums will take place on Saturday, July 12, from 11am until 5pm at Simply Natural Living at Serenity Plaza, located at 1505 Parkway Avenue in Ewing New Jersey. This exciting forum is free to the public and will feature presentations by Professor Alvyn Haywood on the Art of Allowing, Jonathon Cloud for Fairleigh Dickinson’s Sustainable Business Incubator on Emerging Opportunities in Green Business and Eco-Entrepreneurships, Christine Ritter of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory on Unveiling the Hidden Opportunities to Middle and High School Students for Career Paths in the Sciences, and by Mut Seshatms for New Jersey’s House of Life on Rethinking Solar: Giving Power Back to the People. Please RSVP by calling (206) 202-2883 or emailing gsssetcentral@yahoo.com">gsssetcentral@yahoo.com. 

BOOST Green, Smart, and Sustainable Stakeholder Education and Training is a year-long series of public awareness forums and community capacity building workshops designed to help New Jersey’s civic sector plan, develop, and deploy programs, projects, and policy work in the fields of green building, sustainable community design, smart growth, and environmental economy.  BOOST is currently seeking underwriters and sponsors in order to make GSS-SET 2008-09 affordable to enrollees and leverage to highlight, promote, and build visibility for foundations, small businesses, and corporations that endorse and implement a triple bottom line approach to conducting business by capturing an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success; economic, environmental and social.

GenGreen, a company headquartered in Colorado, created its network to help people throughout the United States live their sustainable lives more easily by finding “green” companies, organizations and people on a local level.

Businesses can post green jobs and events on the website. Community members can participate in the dynamic nature of the website by connecting to different groups, blogging, and finding eco-friendly resources in their area.

For more information about GenGreen, go to www.gengreen.org, or email info@gengreen.org">info@gengreen.org and for more information on BOOST go to www.gss-set.com, or email timrazzaq@gss-set.com">timrazzaq@gss-set.com.

Reminder: A Summer Sustainability Institute's FREE camp for Mercer County middle school students - please visit http://www.tcnj.edu/~mluc/index for more info. and to register your public, private, or home-schooled child.  Announcement courtesy Building Open Opportunity Structures Together (BOOST). Also, order your copy of “Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage” (Hardcover) from BOOST for only $20.00 by mailing a check or money order to BOOST, C/O 23 West Street, Bordentown, NJ 08505.  Call (206) 202-2883 or email gsssetcentral@yahoo.com" target="_blank">gsssetcentral@yahoo.com to check on your order status or more information about BOOST.

BOOST Welcomes House of Life for GSS-SET Part 2: Saturday, July 5

"Rethinking Solar: Giving Power Back to the People"

New Location and Additional Presenters for BOOST's GSS-SET 2008-09:

For RSVP's and information requests, contact Tim Razzaq, Executive Director for BOOST Outreach and Advisory Services at (206) 202-2883 and email timrazzaq@gss-set.com">timrazzaq@gss-set.com and sponsorship opportunities at sponsors@gss-set.com">sponsors@gss-set.com.

Clean Air and Water Quality, Green Building, Sustainable Communities, and Ecological Design Focus of Forum

(Trenton, NJ) Trenton’s 30^th annual Heritage Days celebration and a downtown Book Fair serve as the backdrops for the first of a series of public awareness and community mobilization forums being promoted by Building Open Opportunity Structures Together, also known as BOOST.  This event will be free to the public and feature a screening of the Sundance Channel production, Big Ideas for a Small Planet and an in-person appearance one of the film’s featured designers. This program launch will take place on Saturday, June 7 from 11am until 4pm at Gallery 125, located at 125 South W arren Street. For more information or to reserve your seat, please contact BOOST at (206) 202-2883 or email info@gss-set.com">info@gss-set.com.

Mitchell Joachim of Terreform, a nonprofit philanthropic architectural group that focuses on ecological design for urban environments, and whose work is highlighted in Big Ideas, will conduct a slide show demonstrating his real-life tree house made of growing tree trunks, stackable cars, river gym, and other projects that reflect the Terreform mission which “views ecology in design as not only a philosophy that inspires visions of sustainability and social justice but also a focused scientific endeavor.” 

Attendees at this exciting and ground-breaking event will also be treated to a presentation by Jason Kliwinski, associate with the Trenton-based Spiezle Group, one of New Jersey’s leading architectural, planning, and design firms with several major projects on tap in the greater Mercer County region, including Rider University’s New Residence Hall project. This development will consist of 3- and 4-story buildings to house 152-beds in suite and apartment configurations. The project will be designed to obtain a LEED™-Silver Certification.  Joining Dr. Joachim and Kliwinski will be Fred Stine, Citizen Action Coordinator for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Anastasia Harrison for WESKetch Architecture, and Elizabeth Slate-Rutledge for the Syracuse New York-based Alchemical Nursery.

Green, Smart and Sustainable Stakeholder Education and Training, or GSS-SET 2008-09, is the natural outgrowth of BOOST past effort’s at fostering a climate for positive change and a platform for resident inclusion in the planning and decision-making processes that affects, their communities, and neighborhoods. The program is designed to strengthen communities from the inside out and BOOST’s team of workshop facilitators and community resource providers are amongst the leaders in their respective fields of work.  Individuals, organizations, businesses, institutions, and agencies throughout the state of New Jersey are being invited to be participants in this unprecedented education, training, and outreach initiative. Registration packages will be available for interested parties on June 7. For more information, please contact info@gss-set.com">info@gss-set.com or call (206) 202-2883. 

Training and education will start September (’08) and continue through June of 2009 and be hosted in five New Jersey cities/regions at community colleges. Your Company can sponsor one or more GSS-SET Program component and reach tens of thousands of prospective customers, clients, and constituents throughout the Tri-State Region.

 

The cities/colleges/dates are: Trenton (Mercer County) September ’08 and June ’09; Atlantic City (Atlantic-Cape) October ’08 and February ’09; Camden (Camden County) November ’08 and March ’09; Elizabeth (Union County) December ’08 a nd April ’09; and Newark (Essex County) January ’09 and May ’09.  Each full-day session will consist of two workshops and two guest presentations along three tracks: a) community resources (1-hour breakfast and lunch presentations); b) leadership and organizational development (2-hours/morning); and c) green, smart, and sustainable hard skills (2-hours/afternoon)

 

For sponsorship inquiries, please call Tim Razzaq at our voice/fax center at(206) 202-2883 and/or email sponsors@gss-set.com">sponsors@gss-set.com.  

 

Key Media Contacts and Presenter Sketches:

For Distribution/Release: RSVP's and information requests, contact Tim Razzaq, Executive Director for BOOST Outreach and Advisory Services at (206) 202-2883 and email timrazzaq@gss-set.com">timrazzaq@gss-set.com.  Sponsorship opportunities at sponsors@gss-set.com">sponsors@gss-set.com.

Building Open Opportunity Structures Together (www.gss-set.blogspot.com) is a creative community solutions organization that develops and utilizes innovative and customized strategies to build structured relationships between residents, businesses, organizations, and government agencies that lead to beneficial economic, social, and educational opportunities and outcomes in underserved and emerging urban neighborhoods. For more information about BOOST, our partners, program enrollment, or sponsor/underwriter of GSS-SET 2008-09 please contact Tim Razzaq, at (206) 202-2883 or email timrazzaq@comcast.net">timrazzaq@comcast.net  (Please note that, on occasion, emails to this address will often receive a ‘bounce-back’ email telling them that their missive did not go through. In almost all instances, this is false; emails do go through). 

About Spiezle Group, Inc. (www.spiezle.com) Founded in 1954, Spiezle Group, Inc., (SGI) is an award-winning, full-service architecture, planning, and design firm with offices in Trenton, NJ and Media, PA. Known for highly effective design documentation and project management, SGI is an acknowledged leader in the design of public and private facilities promoting sustainable design in every project.

The Delaware RiverKeeper Network (DRN) (http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/) is the only advocacy organization working throughout the entire Delaware River Watershed. The Delaware RiverKeeper is an individual who is the voice of the River, championing the rights of the River and its streams as members of our community.

WESKetch Architecture (http://www.wesketch.com/) is an award winning architectural firm focused on inspirational architecture, providing interior design, engineering services, construction management, green building design combined with the latest indoor air quality issues for each and every building type. Anastasia Harrison is a licensed architect and one of the first indoor air quality certified professionals in the state. 

The Alchemical Nursery Project (http://www.alchemicalnursery.org/) is a non profit committed to spreading the word about the urban eco-village movement globally. We hope to provide the resources, dialogue space, and networks needed for those who would like to establish their own urban eco-village wherever they live! Our local grassroots project is, as you may have guessed, the development of an urban eco-village in Syracuse, NY, that can be replicated anywhere urban USA. 

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The promotion of sustainability, green building, smart growth, and environmental economics has become the priority of government agencies, corporations, nonprofits, and small businesses and the need for education, networking, and technical assistance in these areas has never been greater. 

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Tim Razzaq, President
BOOST
Voice Mail And Fax:
(206) 202-2883 (Please leave name, date, brief message & a return phone number)
timrazzaq@comcast.net">timrazzaq@comcast.net  
www.gss-set.blogspot.com  

BOOST is a creative community solutions organization that develops and utilizes innovative and customized strategies to build structured relationships between residents, businesses, organizations, and government agencies that lead to beneficial economic, social, and educational opportunities and outcomes in underserved and emerging urban neighborhoods.

New Jersey is predicted by many experts to be totally "built out" within the next 20 to 40 years and others predict the Garden State's population will double by the year 2050. However, due to the current home mortgage and consumer credit crises, many proposed private redevelopment and public works projects have either been put "on hold" or abandoned all together.

What is needed is the creation of a positive climate for renewed capital investment to spur the resumption of real estate and economic development, but in a fashion that they address or help to ameliorate prevailing issues that are making positive growth more of a challenge than an opportunity. The interrelated factors of suburban sprawl and environmental degradation of areas vital to maintaining our vital water, energy, food, and natural ecological systems are prompting land use planning and building trades professionals have been attempting to steer real estate development and economic growth into areas that already have good housing stock and infrastructure needed to support an influx of people and business.

These older, largely former industrial, areas are replete with social and economic problems caused by decades of middle-class flight, job loss, and negative economic and population growth patterns. High rates of crime, un- and underemployment, poverty, low home-ownership rates, and under-performing public school systems have made financial institutions hesitant to risk capital investment for these "new market" redevelopment projects – thus another formidable hurdle to effectively accommodate growth much be remedied.

What is may be more feasible and viable is the development and empowerment of local leadership who can plan and carry out smaller scale projects, and the establishment of a climate for positive change to make investment in larger scale redevelopment projects more attractive. Empowering diverse and multiple localized teams for citizen-lead initiatives will prove to move us beyond these barriers. We need structure education and training programs that are designed to position New Jersey's civic sector to be a facilitator of this needed process.

This programming should answer some of the following questions in a way that the 'average' citizen can understand:

What is smart growth? What are the features and benefits of green building and what does sustainable community design mean and what are the desired beneficial outcomes? What are the costs and trade-offs? Who should make these decisions and who should pay for the improvements? Who should benefit and what is the role of local government in fostering and facilitating processes that ensure environmental accountability, economic viability, and social equity?

Many interconnected issues and factors have prompted land use professionals and government officials to study and adopt "smart growth" tools and strategies that call for steering home-building and commercial site development into older urban cities and towns, where property values are generally lower and there is an abundance of vacant or underutilized buildings of many types that can be either demolished or adaptively re-used to create a broad range of housing types and commercial spaces. The need to recycle waste materials to conserve existing resources, clean up environmentally contaminated sites, and reduce energy costs for prospective tenants and owners are to be addressed by planning and implementing green building and sustainable design features in new development as well as for adaptive reuse and preservation projects. Though green building, sustainable design, and smart growth policies and practices are growing into the mainstream of public and private discourse, industry leaders, government officials, and the public at large seeking to learn more about the opportunities, challenges, benefits, and drawbacks of each of these emerging modes of planning, building construction, and community development.

Goals of such a program would be to form cadres/teams of stakeholders to develop and launch their individual and group projects, programs, and/or policy work in regions throughout New Jersey.

By equipping our civic sector with the leadership and organizational skills needed to effectively plan, develop, and implement programs, projects, and policy work that highlight, promote, and advance green building, sustainable community design, smart growth, and environmental economic initiatives, we can begin to see more model projects programs, such as sustainable neighborhood plans; urban science/career paths for high school students; clean energy retrofits for nonprofits, churches, and small businesses; advocacy for community and environmental benefits agreements; eco-entrepreneurial ventures; green business and industry inventory and data centers; sustainable design assessment teams; and unionization of the emerging green collar workforce.

Hopefully, these recommendations will be taken into consideration by individuals, organizations, businesses, institutions, and public and private agencies and support for this agenda will be vigorous enough to give those of us who work in this field the human, technical, technological, and financial assets we need to move us beyond the current challenges and enable us to help more and more persons capture new job, career, housing, business and educational opportunities.

Submitted by Tim Razzaq for BOOST and Partners:

BOOST will launch Green, Smart, and Sustainable Stakeholder Education and Training series of public awareness forums and community capacity building workshops on Saturday, June 7 at Classics Used and Rare Books, located at 117 South Warren Street in downtown Trenton for 11am to 6pm.  The event is free to the general public and will feature a screening of the Sundance Channel’s "Big Ideas for a Small Planet, the Build" episode, a special guest presentation by one of the films featured designers, Mitchell Joachim of Terreform Studios, and by Anastasia Harrison, one of New Jersey’s first certified indoor air quality professionals and principal with WESKetch Architecture.