Jesse Putnam, Eco Encore

Jesse Putnam is the founder and director of Eco Encore, a Seattle-based nonprofit that generates financial support for environmental organizations through the sale of used books, CDs, DVDs, and videos.

Monday turned out to be one of the most productive days we have had thus far. Not only did we gain a large donation from a donor who found Eco Encore via an Internet search (looks like Google has updated and now includes us in their searches), we also gained our second staff member (not including Ripken, our favorite canine environmentalist).

Michelle Zeidman came to Eco Encore via a search for an intern at the University of Washington. We were looking for a capable and energetic person with an environmental heart and an outreach mind who really gets what we are trying to do. I met with her yesterday at Still Life, a local coffee shop, and she really impressed me. She recently worked for Heidi Wills, a pro-environment Seattle city council member, and is just finishing her degree at the University of Washington's Program on the Environment. In addition to being a committed environmentalist and clearly good at getting out a message, Michelle lives just a few blocks from the Eco Encore office! Michelle will lead our outreach effort and will work closely with me and Lisa Hymas, the chair of our outreach committee, in developing ways that we can gain the attention of more donors willing to pass along used CDs, videos, and books. [Editor's note: It so happens that Lisa Hymas is also a Grist contributing editor.] Having Michelle join the Eco Encore team gives us a great boost -- not only for the help that she will offer, but because we all enjoy working with creative and upbeat people who are also committed to seeing the environmental movement succeed.

The Eco Encore training went very well on Monday night. Three of our board members (Lisa, Tom Iurino, and Elizabeth Perera) were joined by Eco Encore volunteer Angela Emery and our new outreach intern Michelle to learn all about the process by which we list items for sale online. This building of "institutional knowledge" will help as we grow and need to enlist volunteer help in a pinch. As more donations come in our sales will increase to a level that may require an "all hands on deck" call to go out from time to time. The training night was fun for all and even Ripken enjoyed watching as we cut cardboard (for mailing items) and practiced how fast we can read a UPC code!

Today's featured sale is Wonderful Ways to Love a Child by Judy Ford and Christine Raquepaw, to be shipped off to a buyer in Reston, Va. It was donated to us last week and the proceeds will go to ONE/Northwest. We are averaging 15 sales a day over the past two weeks, so things are really picking up!