As our Canadian friends celebrate Thanksgiving we wish them a happy day with friends and family. We hope as you celebrate you will reflect on your footprint on the environment. Did you spare a turkey and opt for a plant based meal? Did you invite friends with no family for a meal? We encourage you this festive season to give a present to the environment of the planting of a tree.

This month at the Spruce Initiative we address community. No matter how isolated we are all part of a greater community and our individual actions impact that community. Whether it is your family at home or your neighbourhood you are part of something that is larger than yourself. Your actions send waves which reverberate across your community. If you join the Spruce initiative as an individual, we encourage you to boost your impact by enlisting the cooperation of your community. Doing this multiplies your impact.

We hope you joined a cleaning bee for Clean Up the World Day. Where there is an accumulation of rubbish the most efficient way to clean it up is by a cleaning bee. One member of a community or a number of communities or community members can be vey effective when the work together on a cleaning bee. Is there accumulated rubbish in your community? Or in the ocean near your community? Why not organise a cleaning bee and clean it up. Your local cleaning bee has global impact.

Here at the Spruce Initiative we celebrate Clean Up the World Day which is Sunday September 20 2026. The theme for this year’s Clean up the World Day is “Clean Plates, Clean Cities “. We encourage you to join us at the Spruce Initiative by picking up a piece of rubbish when you are taking your daily walk and planting a tree annually. Why not join the Clean Up the World movement and organising a cleaning bee?!!

All our actions locally impact the environment. City life and farming that is non sustainable affect the climate in adverse ways. I recall when I was younger non sustainable farming created red dust storms in the city and resulted in farms that were dust bowls. Better farming practices ensured the land remained fertile and sustainable. We are able to restore the fertility of farm land and regulate the impact city life has on the climate and marine life by acting locally to effect global positive change. We just need to do it.

This month at the Spruce Initiative we are celebrating Community. We are all part of one global community and the choices we make impact our lives on Earth, the health of our communities and the health of our planet. We encourage people to keep the health of our global ecosystem in mind and to act locally in practices that safeguard our communities and our environment.

Last week we talked about advocating for a Spruced environment. This month, further on the theme of remembering to Spruce we address the importance of sprucing up your community. Get out there and think globally and act locally. Maybe organise a community tree planting drive in your city, suburb or town. Improve your local green space or reclaim some land for wildlife. Every bit helps and you can make some new like minded friends.

So we pick up our one piece of rubbish every day when we are out on our daily walk. We plant a tree every year in celebration of Spruce Day. What now? We suggest advocating for the environment. Lobby your local council to set aside land for parks. Start a neighbourhood initiative to line local streets with trees. Lobby your federal government to protect our oceans. Lobbying costs very little and can have a big impact. Find your voice. Become an advocate for the environment.

Most of us like to stay spruced. We have our hair cut, our nails trimmed or manicured. Ladies frequently wear makeup if only a little lipstick. And we almost all have fresh clothes which are pressed and tidy that we put on after a shower or bath. We wear deodorant, brush our teeth and men shave. So we keep ourselves spruced. We keep our homes in good order, wash our dishes, clean our floors and celebrate special occasions with special meals. All this done we endeavour to keep ourselves gardens near and tidy. So we need to extend our care into the community by tending our cities and countryside. We do this by picking up rubbish and planting gardens and wildlife habitat. As we are a product of our environment so our environment is ...

the Vitruvian Values of Firmness, Commodity and Delight are intrinsic to the mission of the Spruce Initiative. By these we mean an environment that is sustainable, bountiful and beautiful. We need to leave the Earth a little better than we found it. We need to acknowledge the right for people to be an integral part of the life on the planet. We need to respect our environment built and natural.