pics

Elliot manning the table at OSU
setup at the town hall forum at MUS
UMASS eco-village
Silk and Reverb!  at UMaine
saying goodbye to the giant Silk 

The Final Recap

The Campus Consciousness Tour was an amazing experience for me.  Traveling on a tour bus, with a band, waking up in a new place everyday, sleeping in a bunk, and all the other new things I got to experience, I could never have even imagined doing.  It took some adapting to the schedule and life on the road but it was a life I enjoyed.  It was a very faced paced lifestyle and even though I rarely had to time to sit down and relax, I loved every second of it.  I would rather be extremely busy than extremely bored, and I found myself always wanting to do something to help or be productive. 

The thing I am going to miss most about the tour is the people.  By the end of the trip all 12 of us traveling on the bus felt like a family.  Thinking back on it, for 12 people to live in such a small space and get along so well is pretty unbelievable.  I had gotten to know everyone so well, especially the people from the beginning Vanessa, Erin, Elliott, Josh, it was going to be weird not waking up on the bus with them every morning.  We spent almost a month of our lives together, living in close quarters, which almost forced us to really get to know each other, and we all got along so well.  We all had extremely different personalities too, but meshed together very well.  I definitely have some friends that I will keep in touch with after the tour!

The thing that I personally will take away from the tour is everything I learned about environmental sustainability.  I honestly didn’t know too much about it going into the tour, and being around people that were so passionate about it made me want to be too.  From the first day I realized they were very serious about the issue and after that I consciously made an effort to do everything that Reverb was trying to teach people on tour.  For example, to refill your Sigg water bottle instead of using plastic ones, or every cardboard case that I broke down from sampling I made sure got to cardboard recycling.  One morning I went to get coffee and all they had out were styrofoam cups and it made me think twice about even using it.  Before tour I was concerned about the environment, but was not aware of all the ways I could change little things I did to help it.  After tour I want to read books about it and educate myself more, because the people I was with really inspired me to.  Not only did they inspire me to be more green efficient and conscious, but also motivated me to do things in life you care about.  People like Elliott who converted a school bus to travel on straight vegetable oil and educated people while traveling over twelve thousand miles all over the country.  Vanessa who travels to Central America countries and works with underprivileged communities to help fight hunger and poverty.  Erin who constantly dug through the trash to make sure all that could be recycled was making it to the right place.  They all did these things because they cared deeply about making the world a better place, and they passed these feelings along to me.  I want to be like them and do things that matter, and affect people’s lives.

After speaking to hundreds of people, and telling them about Silk, I was really happy to be supporting a great message.  Traveling with all these people that were spreading the word about their non-profit organizations that were all in their own way helping the environment.  I felt proud to be identified with these companies, and to support a message similar. 

Overall I think it was a huge advantage for Silk to have me on the road with Reverb.  It was a great opportunity to collaborate and provide students and the public with information they would not have learned about Silk if I had not been on tour.  Also a lot of people had questions about the product and I answered everything from what is soymilk to how it's different than regular milk.  I think I did a great job of attracting people to try it, especially people that never would have even thought about trying it.  I also excited a lot of people about how great the company is, and how corporate companies can take an initiative to be green.

Thank you Silk for giving me this opportunity, the trip was a lot of work and a lot of fun at the same.  I loved representing you and would love to do it again.

Thank you Reverb for all the help you gave me on tour.  You really made everything easy for me to do my job, as well as made traveling enjoyable.  The partnership worked out great, and I appreciate your message and all you do to green tours.

Thanks all for keeping up and reading what I had to say.  I know I’m not the most eloquent author, but I enjoyed expressing myself over the course of the tour.  I hope everyone enjoyed my entries and glad you got to experience a little part of what I did over the last few weeks!

Happy Holidays!

UMASS, MSU, OSU

Overall the last week of the trip flew by…I’ll quickly recap the last three shows which were all great but very different from each other…

After University of Maine we traveled to UMASS in Amherst Massachusetts.  I woke up outside the UMASS event center, on what looked like a chilly day outside.  When I gathered my stuff to shower and walked out the door of the bus I was correct with my assumption…it was freezing outside.  I considered bundling up and going for a run, but it was too cold and I had slept later than I wanted.  The town hall forum was very intimate because only a few people showed up.  This was the least formal of all the THFs and we sat around and just conversed with each other.  The sampling at the show was pretty slow as well.  Even though we were set up at the back of the floor, opposite the stage yet center of attention, it didn’t attract as big of a crowd as I thought it would.  The bummer of the night was that it was Josh’s last show, he was leaving us to head back to Boston, and it was going to feel a lot different without him around because he really did a lot of the set up and making sure everything was going smoothly. 

Next we had a long drive to Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.  This was a solid 15 hour drive so I tried to stay up as late as I could that night on the bus.  This way I would sleep late the next day cutting down on the time during the day to sit on the bus.  I knew how boring it could get sitting for 6 hours, and I awoke around 1 pm the next day, only to sit on the bus for a little longer.  Those three hours flew by and before I knew it we were at the Marriott in downtown East Lansing.  The town was a great college town with a few blocks of restaurants and bars, and we were staying in the middle of it all.  That night we had off so I asked my friend that had just graduated from MSU a few good spots to go.  We also met up with some of the OAR guys and had a pretty fun time.

We were only a half-mile from the Event Center and headed over there early the next morning.  It was lightly snowing which I enjoyed because it finally felt like it was getting to be late November.  I had to concentrate on getting out a lot of samples during the day because this venue would not allow me to sample that night until after concessions closed, which was about 45 minutes after OAR went on.  I knew this could potentially be a problem because the majority of our traffic was before OAR went on.  I sampled a few cases at the town hall forum, which was in the student center.  I really liked the MSU campus it was pretty big but felt organized and easy to get around.  The buildings were older but seemed nice.  There was a decent crowd at the forum all who enjoyed the samples and some t-shirts.  The students seemed very aware and had some really involved student groups on campus.  Later on at the show I set up just the raffle with the guitar, and then planned later on to hand out samples.  I had a lot of people sign up for the raffle and sampling after went a lot better than I thought.  In between songs a lot of people came out to go to the bathroom or get a drink, and since concessions were closed, a cold chocolate Silk was the perfect answer for them.

On we traveled to Ohio State, our last stop on the tour, so it was our last night on the bus.  I had a lot of things to organize but kept on pushing them off.  I couldn’t believe the tour was over already!  I felt like I could live on the bus for another few weeks, because I had grown so accustomed to it.  We had to be off the bus by 9am the next morning because Dave our bus driver was just dropping us off and then making his way back home to Nashville.  Luckily I got in contact with my friends Joey and Quinn who go to OSU and they just happened to live 10 houses away from the Newport, a downtown club in Columbus where the show was.  I was able to bring all my stuff, which had accumulated over the trip to more I had come with, and pretty much took over Quinn’s room.  I quickly showered at his place and then rushed off to the town hall forum on campus.  Once again, I was trying to do as much sampling as I could during the day because the show that night was not a typical one.  It was a Bud Light sponsored over 21 event, and I wasn’t sure how many of those people would want to sample a chocolate Silk vs. a Bud Light.  The venue was also very small so we only had one table to fit all of Silk, Reverb, and Oxfam’s stuff on it.  We decided considering the type of show, and that it was our last we should try and enjoy.  We had the table set up from when doors opened to a little after OAR went on, but the interest died down after OAR started playing, so we then broke it down.

This show was an interesting way to end the tour, because it didn’t feel like a college show, what we had been used to, but it felt like a regular concert.  The OAR guys all went to OSU so it felt like they were right at home, and the crowd was fun and into the show.  The venue also was older but perfect for a 1500 intimate show, because it had a small floor and a balcony that overlooked the floor.  I tried to enjoy the show as much as a I could knowing it was going to be my last one for a while…a really bittersweet feeling because it felt good that it was all over, but at the same time I didn’t want it to end.

University of Maine

We had a great little day off in Portland but the downside of staying in Portland was we had to wake up a little earlier to drive two hours up to Orno, ME the next morning.  University of Maine had a pretty nice campus, and it seemed it was similar size to Delaware about 20,000 students and about a 20 minute walk from one end of campus the other.  The venue however was a little different, it was a giant open field house, but had a similar feeling to a huge metal barn.  Being that we were as far north almost to Canada, it was not too warm inside either.

Today was going to be a pretty cool day, because Reverb had hired people to follow us around and tape our daily activities for a video they wanted to make about the Campus Consciousness Tour.  We went about our daily activities, and the camera crew just followed us around all day.  It was pretty fun walking to the town hall forum through campus, with the camera crew running around us to try and get the best shot.  I felt like I was either famous or on a reality show with the cameras following us.  The town hall forum went really well that day to.  We had a decent turn out, and I set up a little table with the Silk table cloth and samples for people to take, it looked very formal.

Later on in the day when I was setting up my booth the camera crew interviewed me.  They asked me a lot really good questions about Reverb and Silk’s relationship.  Also about sampling and people’s reactions, and the affect Silk’s message was having on them.  I got a chance to talk about all the reasons why Silk was supporting the CCT and all the company does to be environmentally sustainable.  Also later on when we had the eco-village totally set up, they filmed us in action.  They got some good footage of me handing out samples, and people drinking them.  In addition, they got my volunteers and I talking to students and educating them about Silk.  I’m excited to see how the video comes out, because it is an awesome opportunity to show how Silk is involved on the tour.  It also would be great PR for the company to show and promote!

That particular show I went through samples really quickly.  No one who I asked to try it turned me down except for one guy that gave me an excuse he was chewing gum.  I told him he’d love it if he just gave it a chance, then he asked me if I promised and I said yes.  Later he came back up to me and said, “you were right it’s really good.”  A lot of people started to drink it right away instead of putting it in their bag for later, which was good for the cameraman to get on tape.  The one thing that stuck out to me tonight was people seemed to be really receiving the message better about Silk’s green initiative.  A lot of people that I told about offsetting to wind energy were really engaged with the idea and I had long conversations with a few people about it.  It was really cool for me because a lot of the time people were initially surprised, but then just acknowledge the information and walk off.  I was happy to be getting questions about how exactly Silk offsets and other questions concerning wind energy.  I really felt like I was getting the message across here to more people, than at previous schools.

I guess I was in an interview mood because the school newspaper was doing a documentary/article and I caught them at the right time to do an interview with them.  I feel like as much publicity as Silk can get for this tour the better.  I mean that is predominately why I am here, to represent the brand and increase awareness to the people who I am around.  Definitely a hugely productive day, between the video, my interview with the newspaper, and in general the strong interest from people at the show learning about Silk.

Benj the bassist of the band is so awesome!  In his interview he told me he gave a big shout-out to Silk for being sponsor.  He has been the one in the band promoting campus consciousness tour’s message the strongest, and at the same time is a big Silk fan.  Thanks Benj!

Bucknell University

The next day was a rainy one at Bucknell.  It had rained both days we were in Delaware and still raining in Bucknell was kind of a downer for everyone.  It was Saturday though so we got to watch some college football.

The venue was smaller and we had an area on the upper level, that overlooked the floor and stage, to set up our stuff.  I grabbed a spot right in the middle of the venue, just around the corner from the other tables, because I thought it would be a better place to sample.  It’s also where we were going to put just the inflatable, but I have come to realize I like it better when the inflatable, sampling, and table are all in one place.  A few times the inflatable couldn’t fit by the table so we put it somewhere near the entrance where everyone could see it.  Also at Delaware the barrel coolers were leaking so I had my volunteers hand out samples outside, and that wasn’t ideal because I didn’t get to see people’s reactions to Silk.  It also really goes hand in hand, “try a sample, you could win a year’s supply.”

Sampling at Bucknell was a little slower than it had been at Delaware.  Since we were upstairs a lot of people came in the entrance and went straight to the floor.  Everyone could see us from the floor, so we did have a decent amount of people come check it out.  Tonight I stood by one of the barrel coolers next to the inflatable and handed out samples.  My two volunteers also handed out samples on the other side of the table.  This was different than in the past because no one was standing behind the table, asking people to sign up for the raffle.  I feel that since no one was standing behind the table more people stopped to check it out.  At Delaware the new specially made raffle forms got delivered and they are awesome looking!  The form describes exactly what is being raffled off.  So for people stopping by, if I am distracted talking someone else, can read the form and know what they are signing up to win.  I think it may be intimidating for someone to be standing behind the table watching you fill out a form to win, also some people are just shy and would rather walk by than ask what the signed guitar and huge Silk carton is doing there.  I think I may continue to try and be out in front of the table, and have people sign up.

The night went well, at the end I had a lot of raffle tickets filled out, and no samples.  Since everyone could see it, I left the inflatable up for most of the show.  I felt like it was in a good spot, and should have a presence during the show.  I don’t really think it had that much of an impact leaving it up longer, because everyone was watching the show, but even if it caught a few people’s eye I was ok with it.

My brother Mike came down from Penn State for the show, so he hung out with me for a little while I handed out samples.  We had a really good view of the show so he watched it near the table with me.  He also got the chance to wonder around.  I got him a guest pass so he could go wherever he wanted to.  He got there around dinner time so I was happy we got to eat dinner together, the catering was pretty good that night too.  Then there was a meet and greet with the band so I got to introduce him to some of the guys.  I felt bad I kind of had to ditch him to do my job, but at the same time he could watch the show wherever he wanted to, hang out on the bus or backstage, and do a lot of things that most people don’t get the chance to do at a concert.  After I cleaned up all my stuff we went down and watched the show from the side of the stage.  It was definitely the best show OAR has put on so far!

The next day we we had a day off and we were stopping in Portland, ME.  That is also where Reverb is based so we had plans to go out to dinner with Adam and Lauren (the founders of Reverb).  We went to a place called flatbread pizza right on the water.  It was a cute little place that just served pizza and salad and used all locally grown and organic products to make their food.  I had tasted a few flatbread gluten-free pizzas at expo and was hoping that this place had a gluten-free option, because I am allergic.  Sure enough I asked, and they make a single size gluten-free pizza.  It was the best pizza I have had in a long time!  Even better than the kinds I tried at expo because it was fresh out of the oven.  I really contemplated ordering some to ship home, but decided against it.  Besides the food being awesome dinner was great.  Everyone casually conversed about different things, and I had a chance to sit down and talk and get to know Lauren and Adam.  They seem like really great nice people, you can tell they really care about what Reverb is all about and what we are doing.  We talked about how happy they were to have SIlk on board and how much of a really great partnership it is between the two organizations.  I think so far the tour has been a great success and it has really given SIlk a chance to get out and show people that it supports an environmental initiative, especially to folks who normally would not have know that.

The night in Portland was great, I also got a chance to meet Brian and Emily, who also work in the Reverb office.  Overall everyone had a good time and it was really great to meet Adam and Lauren because everyone has spoken so highly of them.  Rightly so, they seem like good-hearted, motivated, friendly people.

pics from Udel

Ria, Katie, Caitlin and I on the bus
Josh and his cousins
the awesome crowd at Delaware
the student group's table with stage in the back

University of Delaware

We got to the Hilton in Newark, DE early the next morning and when I woke up our room keys were already lined up on the counter of the front of the bus.  I grabbed my key and some clothes for the next few days and headed up to the room.  Usually I try and pack clothes in my day bag for a few days so I don’t have to continually pull my bag out from underneath the bus.  The hotel was really nice, I have stayed there before, but it’s funny to me that the really nice hotels don’t have any complimentary coffee out or anything.  I have gotten used to the Hampton Inn coffee all day in the lobby and continental breakfast, because for the most part that is where we have stayed on this trip. 

I made a few calls to some friends who were still at Delaware, to see what everyone’s plans were for the night.  Everyone came to pretty much to the same consensus of watching the Pats vs Jets game and then going to Deer Park Tavern to listen to Kristen and the Noise, a pretty good cover band that usually plays at Deer Park on Thursday nights.  I did have some things on my list to do when I got back including grabbing nachos and a margarita at Sante Fe, my favorite place on campus.  When I went to school I would eat at Sante Fe at least a once a week.  Then Erin is a vegan and there is a pretty good restaurant on campus known for its vegan options, so I thought it would be cool to eat there for dinner.

My roommate Katie is finishing up her last semester at UD so I was really happy I was going to get to spend some time with her.  She had class from 2-8 that day but after that she came and met us for dinner at Home Grown, the vegan place.  The rest of the night was pretty fun.  The football game was a great close game to watch, and Deer Park was just like another Thursday night, however with a lot less people that I knew there, a decent amount of our friends have graduated.  It felt good to be back though.

The next day was the show.  I had some time in the morning, and decided I would try and shower and do a load of laundry at Katie’s place.  It was also Elliott’s 25^th birthday and his favorite kind of cake is funfetti, so I thought it would be nice to make him a funfetti cake.  I had a lot of things to do and not a whole lot of time before the town hall forum at 1pm to do them.  Katie picked me up and we quickly stopped at Acme bout some stuff to make the cake, got to her place and made the cake while throwing in my laundry and throwing the cake in the oven.  Hopped in the shower and then checked the cake in the oven.  I was extremely productive in that hour, but the cake still had to be cooled and iced, and laundry thrown in the dryer.  Katie said she could do this for me, after she had class and I had the town hall forum.  I guess that’s what good friends are for.

The forum was really appealing to me because I had never been involved in anything like this on campus before.  I wanted to see what types of clubs were on campus and what types of things they did.  I talked for a while with some really nice girls about how they liked Delaware and I came to find out that Delaware as a state is trying to build a wind farm somewhere down by Rehobeth beach.  The students on campus have been trying to get the University involved with that, and possible offsetting a lot of their energy to the development.  This obviously caught my attention because Silk offsets all of their energy to wind energy.  I think I would actually enjoyed to be part of this group, if I knew about it, while I was a student.  They do fun things like go camping, next week they were organizing a clothing swop, and some other events that caught my interest.  This trip overall is making me a lot more aware of even just the small things people can do to improve the environment.  It is a serious issue and if people were just a little bit more in tune with the things they use and waste, that awareness could go a long way.

For the rest of the day I did the usual…finding out where I could get ice, set up the table, get the products off the bus and what not.  I told Katie she should come drop off the cake and my laundry and eat dinner with us provided by catering.  We all waited around the bus for her because Elliott had no idea I made him a cake and we were going to surprise him.  She ended up just dropping the cake off and because she still had some things to do and get ready to come to the show. 

The show that night was crazy!  I went through samples really really quickly based on just the sure volume of people coming to the show.  I would have continued to put more and more samples out but I had to ration myself to make sure I have enough for the next two shows.  We had a pretty cool spot for set up, which looked out over the venue, and was directly in front of the stage.  I was excited because we were going to be able to listen to the opening band VACO who were sharing the bus with.  None of us had gotten a chance to hear them yet because we were always outside or doors were shut closing us out.

I saw some of my friends that still went to Delaware and they all wanted me to try and get them to meet the band, and get back stage and stuff.  I asked a few people and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work.  Josh was really nice though and told me that he would clean up for me so I could go watch the show with my friends.  I grabbed three of them that I saw and took them with me to watch the show in some better seats than they were in.  It was fun watching the show with them and they were really appreciative that I got them to some pretty sweet seats.  Delaware definitely had the best turn out so far for a show.  Not only just number wise but also crowd was really into the show, I was proud my Alma Mater represented!

After the show I took Katie back with me to the bus, so she could see our home.  Also it’s really funny but Josh’s cousin Martin Cahill, goes to Delaware, and I was friends with him.  So Martin brought some of our other friends from Delaware back to the bus, including my Caitlin Germain who I had played soccer with and was another good friend a year younger than me.  We had a crowded little bus party, but it was fun!  It was cool to show people what I have been doing, and all my friends were super jealous of my job.  Cahill even was threatening to try and hide on the bus somewhere so he could sneak to Bucknell with us.  Everyone partied on the bus until our driver Dave got back around 1:30am.  We said our goodbyes, and headed off from Delaware to Bucknell.  Josh and I were glad it seemed like my friends and his cousins had a good time hanging out with us.

Overall it was good to hang out with friends I knew, in a very familiar city.  It was weird being back without a few people… shout out to Emily Sammis!  We missed you!  Check out the blog for some pics in a little…