Gaiam Happenings | pg.3

Last month Gaiam staffers contributed 40 fully-packed backpacks to the Crayons to Calculators school supply drive, which aims to provide 5,000 backpacks to children in need to start their school year off right.

Our staff’s huge outpouring of support for the Crayons to Calculators program is clear in this mountain of donated backpacks … The girls from Gaiam’s HR team paused for a photo before prepping the packs for volunteers to fill at our Boulder, Colo., headquarters.

They’re named for our Go Zero carbon offset program — but this crew could go by “Spontaneous Combustion” for how they ROCK even though they’d never played together until the night before their debut at our last company picnic. The Go Zeros had us hoppin’ again last week with some Bob Marley, John Lennon, U2, Police, Steely Dan …  You know the band is good when people start dancing with their coworkers in broad daylight. Check out the video, and scroll down for a couple more photos plus the details on the fabulous FOOD.

You’d be amazed what you can make from an exercise ball. We were today when 20-some teams transformed BalanceBalls into all manner of animal, vegetable and mineral, competing during our summer picnic to win gift certificates to the Gaiam Café.

Go behind the scenes at our headquarters in Boulder, Colo., in this clip created and hosted by the fabulous YogaMates.com Director Kasey Luber. Our campus was a big stop on her recent “50 Days” tour of yoga studios around the west (since we do, after all, have a yoga studio right here in our building). Meet a few of our Gaiam team members and get a peek at, you guessed it, our yoga studio — plus our our solar power system, Gaiam Cafe, Gaiam Garden, filming studio, customer service center, mock retail store and more. Put a few friendly faces to the Gaiam name — and see where we do all the good things you make it possible for us to do!

Being the original Balance Ball people, Gaiam employees tend to do a little more bouncing during the day than people at most companies. A picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s go on a quick walk around our department …

To the right is me, Everett. I make sure search engines like the one on my shirt bring you to Gaiam when you search for terms like Balance Ball or fitness ball or stability ball.

After asking you to vote on four composters we selected from your suggestions, the first round of the Gaiam Compost-Off has come to a close and only two composters remain standing. Here are the results:

Finalists:

Orb Composter – 51% Votes
Earthmaker Composter – 29.5% Votes

Voted Out:

Green Cone Composter – 15% Votes
Wigwam Composter – 4.5% Votes

Inspiring movies based on true stories really touch our hearts. The new Spiritual Cinema Circle feature film Red Like the Sky tells the true story of Mirco Mencacci, who is one of the most talented Italian sound editors working today — and happens to be blind. Here’s a preview with introduction by What Dreams May Come producer and Spiritual Cinema Circle co-founder Stephen Simon.

If you’re a Gaiam fan on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or are a member of Gaia, you’ll recall that we recently asked for your input on how to make the best compost, best materials to use for composting, and suggestions on your favorite composters. Why, you may ask? Because we want to step up our selection of composting products to make it even better — and we want you to help us pick the next composter we should carry in our catalog.

Inspired by Kate Hanley’s blog post on finding her “Dream Yoga Mat,” yesterday we decided to give six lucky Facebook fans and Twitter followers the chance to win a dream yoga mat of their own. We simply asked them to answer the question, “What is your favorite yoga pose, and why?” We expected great answers, and our friends surprised us with so much more.

“Our garden has gotten people so fired up,” says Kate Weaver, a lead volunteer in a team of Gaiam employees who’s bringing a new organic garden to life at our Boulder, Colo., headquarters. “I’ve never seen so much heart go into anything.”