Fiskars Project Orange Thumb, the Home Depot Foundation, and the City of Baltimore are teaming to make over an area in a local Baltimore neighborhood in just one day. This Thursday, 80 members from all three groups and people from around the community will build a new garden in the Oliver neighborhood. They will break ground at 8 a.m. and complete the project just in time for the ribbon cutting that will take place at 4:30 that afternoon.

Fiskars’ Project Orange Thumb, started in 2003, has helped over 100 communities and given more than $200,000 in garden grants. “The overall mission of Fiskars Project Orange Thumb is to encourage and develop neighborhood beautification, horticultural education, sustainable agriculture, neighborhood involvement, community development and outreach,” said Brent McHenry with Public Relations and Communications for Fiskars. The Oliver neighborhood garden will be Project Orange Thumb’s 6^th makeover this year.

For each makeover, Fiskars partners with a corporate sponsor and a local community organization. “Fiskars coordinates, develops and manages the day-long makeover. The Home Depot donated all the planting materials and supplies for the project and will assist with the garden installation. The City of Baltimore also will assist in installing the garden and will help manage its maintenance upon completion, ” said McHenry.

Joe Lamp’l, known as “Joe Gardener” on Fresh From the Garden on the DIY Network, uniquely designs each garden for Project Orange Thumb. The Oliver neighborhood garden will feature shade trees, hundreds of vegetables, flowering annuals and perreniels, as well as a sitting area.

“We strive to find locations that will benefit from this type of build, including densely populated areas, priority neighborhoods with a vast population,” said McHenry.

Do you know of a place in your community that could use a makeover? You can nominate an area for a new garden by emailing orangethumb@fiskars.com. With your submission, provide information on where the location is, a brief history of the area, and why it deserves a new garden.

(If you’re wondering why these green projects are dubbed Orange Thumb, it’s because of the company’s iconic orange scissors, first sold in the 1960s. Fiskars, a Finnish company, is among the oldest businesses in the world, having started as an ironworks in 1649.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

While the vast majority of Americans are car bound, rising numbers are getting on board with public transit, commuter and light rail, trolleys and buses.

Those riding the rails and buses took 10.7 billion trips on public transportation in 2008, a 4 percent increase over the number of trips taken in 2007, according to a ridership report by the American Public Transportation Association.

During the same period, the number of vehicle miles traveled on roadways declined by 3.6 percent, the group reported, citing the U.S. Department of Transportation.

While the road miles driven could simply reflect fewer people commuting to work combined with lower driving levels resulting from last summer’s soaring gas prices, the APTA sees the increase in ridership as a continuation of a longer term trend.

“Public transportation use is up 38% percent since 1995, a figure that is almost triple the growth rate of the population (14 percent) and up substantially over the growth rate for the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on our nation’s highways (21%) for that same period,” the association explained in a news statement released Monday.

In sheer numbers, the 2008 ridership was the greatest since 1956; though today’s higher population means the percentage of riders is still much less than it was at that time.

APTA president William W. Millar noted that those switching to public transit can save themselves more than $8,000 a year in gasoline and car maintenance costs, as well as helping lessen their carbon footprint.

“Now, more than ever, the value of public transportation is evident and the public has clearly demonstrated that they want and need more public transit services,” Millar said. “Public transportation is good for the economy, good for the environment and good for energy independence and now is the time for the federal government to increase its investment in public transportation.”

Light rail — which includes trolleys and modern street cars — saw the biggest percentage increases in ridership.

The city of Charlotte, with a light rail system that opened in late 2007, saw an 862 percent increase.

Charlotte was followed by New Orleans’ light rail system, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, with an annual increase of 218 percent.