Another Year Has Gone By

I’ll be honest with you: When I wrote the first 5 Minutes of Caring article during the summer of 2006, I really had no idea I’d be writing about all we did in 2008 a few years later. That’s the beauty (and the nervous roller coaster ride) that comes with our work and our organization. If we’re honest, it’s grown beyond our wildest dreams.

So, here are some of the high points of the past year:

It all began with [Jen Lemen's beautiful poster][]. The second installment of our New Day Poster was colorful, creative and captured the essence of what many of you are striving for in your daily lives. We all want to make the world a better place, and this 11″x17″ reminder helps us.

Because of that, we partnered with Jen on some T-shirts and recycled greeting (or holiday) cards.

We moved into our very first office.

Springamajig was a success, getting many of us out of our homes and into our communities in order to make the planet a better place. Look for round two of this in March 2009.

At the tail end of Springamajig, the CoolPeople CarPool began. Since April, we’ve had hundreds of people carpool somewhere at least once in over 30 US states.

The first [CoolPeopleCare products][] hit store shelves. If you’re near Nashville, check out the green collection at [Cheekwood's gift shop][].

We released our second book.

CoolPeopleCare appeared in several media outlets. We showed up in print in The Tennessean and The Boston Globe, on the TV with Nashville’s CBS affiliate, and on the airwaves with WRLT (Lightning 100).

So what does 2009 have in store? Well, some things are certain:

• Six incredible interns will begin work in January.

• A new artist is on board with a new poster very soon.

• A new site design with all new features will be making its appearance very soon.

• And, the unexpected should rear its head at some point. That can often be the most exciting part for us.

But, one thing you can count on is this: We’ll continue to deliver quality 99-word ideas for saving the world to your inbox each weekday. That’ll never stop.

Thanks for being cool.