I was the official emcee for the Uniquely You summit this year and now, the lovely ladies Shaleah and Camille are planning a one day brunch event!! Everything they do is so inspiring and uplifting. Definitely an awesome event to check out!! Details below!

The “UNIQUELY YOU” SUMMIT Committee is hosting a Summer Brunch Fundraiser for Women & Girls on July 24, 2010 from 11 A.M. until 2 P.M. at the Hilton Philadelphia Airport (conveniently located at 4509 Island Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19153). This brunch is designed to raise funds to sustain the “UNIQUELY YOU” SUMMIT in an effort to empower and inspire girls of the Delaware Valley. Our committee is working tirelessly to continue programming that will save our girls by reaffirming their self-esteem and individuality. We can’t do this without your support!!

This past April, we hosted our first two-day “UNIQUELY YOU” SUMMIT at the Springside School for Girls in Philadelphia. Over 500 girls, ages 12-18, from the Tri-State Area, and as far as Wisconsin, registered for this event! During the two-day Summit, the young ladies attended and participated in various empowerment and enrichment workshops covering topics like:  self esteem, higher education, and abstinence. The workshops were facilitated by prominent, high-profile, accomplished women, such as: Lisa Nutter, First Lady of the City of Philadelphia, Beverly Bond, President of Black Girls Rock, Inc., Humanitarian Pauletta Washington (wife of Oscar-Winning Actor, Denzel Washington), and Broadway, Television, & Film actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, in addition to many other outstanding and successful women who serve as excellent role models to young ladies.  As a result of recognizing the positive impact the “UNIQUELY YOU” SUMMIT had on the young ladies (by way of completing an event evaluation), we would be remiss if we did not seize the opportunity to continue our desire to help deserving young ladies aspire into mature, intelligent, and responsible young adults.  The success of our first Summit is credited largely to our sponsors: ARAMARK Corporation, Carol’s Daughter, and Hint Water to name a few, who lent their name, promotional items, and financial support to the well attended event!

For more information about the Summer Brunch Fundraiser, visit www.summertimein3B.com. For more information about the “UNIQUELY YOU” SUMMIT, visit: www.uniquelyyousummit.org.

Glamour Magazine had a great article last year, 30 Little Ways To Save The Planet.

Here are some of my favorites that I pulled from the article that I do all the time:

1. Sign up for online banking. It saves you time, and it saves trees. If every American did this, 2.3 million tons of wood could be spared annually, and 3.9 billion pounds of greenhouse gases (directly to blame for heating up the planet) would be eliminated. When you visit an ATM, skip the receipt–those scraps of paper are a top source of litter.
2. Shop online, too. By some estimates, every minute spent driving to a store uses 10 times the energy of doing that same shopping on the Web. For eco-driven sites so good you’ll never miss the mall, visit nau.com and thegreenloop.com for fashion, and econsciousmarket.com for home finds.
3. Adjust your thermostat. The average American home emits about 13 tons of air-clogging carbon dioxide annually via boilers, furnaces and water heaters. Put a dent in that by lowering your thermostat 2°F in winter (to 68°F, ideally) and raising the AC temp by the same amount in summer (to 76°F).
4. Buy makeup you can refill. You avoid wasting raw materials and energy (packaging takes a lot) and you save money. Bobbi Brown, Aveda and Stila all make them.
5. Be kind to your wardrobe. Tend to little things such as missing buttons and frayed hems so items don’t need to be replaced as often, says Simran Sethi, host of The Green series on the Sundance Channel. “My cobbler saved a pair of leather boots three times by resoling them!” Consider giving old stuff to charity. (Rachel Bilson, for one, donates her old denim to Teens for Jeans.)
6. Get some fun, cheap china. You’ll never reach for Styrofoam again if you stock up on colorful dishes from a thrift shop. They’ll look great at parties (and who cares if they break?).
7. Go ahead and use the dishwasher. Running full loads is actually less water-intensive than hand-washing. If you do it yourself, don’t keep the water running; fill the sink, scrub, rinse.