This week on Healthy You! we’re all about the Green Festival. The Green Festival is a joint project of Green America and Global Exchange. The Festival is held in 5 cities across America and on June 5th & 6th it will be here in Seattle. Our guests this week are Jenny Heins and Charles Earnest from Green Festival.

Jenny Heins is the Regional Director for the Seattle Green Festival.  Heins has been with the Green Festival since the first Seattle show in 2008.  The Seattle Green Festival annually attracts over 30,000 attendees and features over 150 presenters and 350 exhibitors.  The Green Festival is the largest sustainability event in the country.

Heins also serves as President of Sustainable Ballard, is part of the leadership team of Sustainable Communities ALL Over Puget Sound, a board member of Undriving.org, a core team member of Dynamic Governance NW and serves in an advisory capacity with Sustainable Seattle. When not attending meetings, she can be found gardening, hiking, kayaking or chasing her chickens.

Charles Earnest has lived in the Northwest since 1985 and he is the “Seattle Green Festival Catalyst.” Trained as an industrial photographer in NYC in the 70’s, he worked in advertising production for 15 years beginning his career in the Midwest and moving to Seattle for quality of life choices. In his second career, he marketed computer hardware and software for 15 years for several companies in the Northwest including Microsoft. Charles began volunteering and engaging in environmental efforts in 1976 after reading National Geographic’s special issue on water. He began making sustainable choices in his life from that point forward and has strived to create the smallest environmental footprint possible.

In 2005 when living in both San Francisco and Seattle, he attended his first Green Festival event. He knew immediately that Seattle would also benefit from an annual Green Festival and approached the organizers to bring the event to Seattle. After two years of lobbying the Seattle government and conducting fundraising, he succeeded in securing the first event for spring 2008. Green Festival is now in its third year and Charles continues to participate on the Green Festival host committee with its efforts to expand the program and attendance at each year’s event.

So tune in Wednesday at 1pmPT and find out all about the Green Festival and easy ways for you to make your environment more healthy.

To your health!