A PROJECT OF THE MEMNOSYNE INSTITUTE, THE SITE IS AN ECO-FRIENDLY RESOURCE

There’s a growing number of people who are interested in keeping up with the latest information on the environmental movement, and Green Source DFW hopes to be a news source of choice for eco-friendly individuals.

Green Source DFW is a project of the Dallas-based Memnosyne Institute under one of its seven “centers” — environment, science and economics; interfaith initiatives, indigenous culture, global local outreach; health and medicine; spirituality, and art.

Environmental author and attorney Wendel Withrow calls Green Source DFW a “labor of love.” Withrow serves as the director of the Center for the Environment at the Memnosyne Institute.

“The mainstream news media doesn’t pay as much attention to the environment as we’d like them to.” – Wendel Withrow

“The mainstream news media doesn’t pay as much attention to the environment as we’d like them to,” Withrow said. “We’re trying to fill the void.”

Withrow was a volunteer before he became the director the Center for Environment, and he’s written an outdoorsy book, The Best in Tent Camping: Texas.

The site lists calendar events for environmentally friendly happenings across the Dallas-Fort Worth area — everything from talks, lectures, and panels to outdoor events, vegan meetups, and farmer’s markets listings.

Green Source DFW also operates a daily blog that runs short articles written by paid reporters on green-energy initiatives, innovations in recycling, local events such as the recent Native Plants & Prairies Day held at White Rock Lake, and tips on botany and gardening.

GREEN EVENTS ARE A FOCUS OF THE SITE’S CALENDAR

Withrow also said that, at its best, Green Source DFW is a good way to let people know about important events, such as environment-related city council hearings or other things people might need to mobilize over.

In addition to connecting people digitally, Green Source DFW organizes galas and events, including the upcoming Run for the Environment on Saturday, May 21.

The event will feature vendors, food, and a fun run/walk, with the net proceeds going to support the organization.

As long as environmentally conscious people are being connected, both digitally and face-to-face, Green Source DFW is doing its job, Withrow said.

“Once you have everybody talking, good things happen,” Withrow says.

The Memnosyne Institute was created by Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk and Joshua Frenk as a way to help communities deal with the impacts of globalization.

“Once you have everybody talking, good things happen.” – Wendel Withrow

Thompson-Frenk, who serves as the organization’s president, has said that The Memnosyne Institute, formerly called the Memnosyne Foundation, began as an effort to help people adapt to a globalized world responsibly, and to try to foster collaborations among people “regardless of what side of the world they come from.”

The Memnosyne Institute focuses its efforts on the interrelationships among important cultural characteristics, as well as on human rights issues and facilitating basic life necessities. The areas it addresses include global local outreach, interfaith initiatives, indigenous cultures, spirituality, art, health and medicine, and environment, science, and economics.

Each of the Memnosyne’s focus areas, or “centers,” are connected to the others, echoing the institute’s vision of global interconnectedness — which manifests in a variety of fundraisers, initiatives, programs, and projects.

In 2010, Memnosyne created a Hunger Task Force, which serves to connect excess food items with nonprofits and pantries in attempts to alleviate hunger. The institute also supports interfaith works, indigenous culture heritage projects, and is behind the “School in a Box” program, an attempt to bring education to poverty-stricken regions. It has created community kitchens and made efforts to help families obtain clean drinking water.

The institute’s work has taken it around the world as they attempt to make a difference in places like Vietnam, Mexico, Rwanda, Guatemala, and Tanzania.

Photoillustration: Brian Jackson via istockphoto

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