Blog

On August 22-24, our featured Green Hero Shaun Majumder is celebrating his hometown of Burlington, Newfoundland with the third annual The Gathering event. And you, our Green Hero fans, have the chance win two tickets to the weekend festival!

What’s a Gathering? It’s an east coat tradition where you can listen to music from some of Canada’s greatest musicians, sample food from amazing local chefs, sleep at the on-site camping grounds and of course meet and spend the weekend with our comedian and Green Hero Shaun Majumder!

Interested? Okay, here’s what you do to win!

1.  Join the Green Heroes Academy Facebook page (If you’re already a member, you’re one step closer!)

2.  On the Green Heroes Academy Facebook page tell us in three sentences (or less) why you want to win the prize! Yup, it’s that easy!

3. Wait while the Green Hero team chooses the lucky winner!

Remember even if you’re not chosen as the winner for the contest you still have the opportunity to go to the event! All you have to do is head over to The Gathering website and purchase tickets that best suit the experience you’d like to have!

Good Luck to Everyone! Stay Green!

– The Green Hero Team

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

When: August 22, 2014 9:00 AM — August 24, 2014 7:00 PM

Weekend Festival Pass:

Prize Includes:

Gathering Grounds access

Daily Music

Main Stage evening show

Chef Stations (Two Visits per Person)

Does NOT Include:

Travel Arrangements

      Camping Gear

Friday Comedy Show

    Does NOT include Chef Hikes

* Special Thanks to The Gathering for their prize donation

Watch and learn about our celebrity Green Heroes

Join the Green Heroes™ Academy App to complete challenges and secret missions to become an honorary Green Hero too!

Sign up for our newsletter

Follow us on Twitter

Become our fan on Facebook

Featured Green Hero Shaun Majumder quickly learned the importance of creating local, viable businesses that utilize the environment in a positive way. The well-known actor and comedian helped get his Burlington, Newfoundland community back to their grassroots by building a greenhouse that three local communities could buy into and grow their own vegetables. Through his own experiences Shaun has recognized “…why its important to have sustainability in rural communities.”

With his show, Majumder Manor, Shaun is looking to further build the sustainability of his native community by attracting tourism to his hometown with an Eco-Lux hotel. You can watch Shaun’s adventures unfold on the second season of Majumder Manor that started back in full swing Monday nights on the W Network.

If you want to get even more involved with Shaun’s causes check out The Gathering event happening this August in Burlington, Newfoundland. This three day event taking place from the 22^nd to the 24^th has live music from famed artists such as Sam Roberts and Dave Nugent, amazing food from award winning chefs, and a comedy show that will be hosted by yours truly, Shaun Majumder. To get tickets and more information for the event head to www.thegatheringburlington.com.

Green Heroes got a major boost after a successful pitch by co-founder Joan Prowse to investors at the 2014 Imagination Catalyst competition on May 15. The judges (among them former Dragon Den investor Bruce Croxon) were impressed by the content of the pitch and CineFocus’ own commitment to helping develop a node of creativity and excellence using Green Heroes as a prototype for others to learn from.

 Imagination Catalyst is the Ontario College of Art and Design’s entrepreneurship and commercialization hub. Its mission is to help entrepreneurs launch new enterprises and commercialize their designs, products and services. The win gives CineFocus and Green Heroes access to office space, mentors, visiting academics and the talent base of OCAD’s students for one year.

Petra Kassun-Mutch, Executive Director of Imagination Catalyst, put the value of OCAD’s contribution at $20,000 and noted that already the hub has raised $12 million in investments for companies and projects previously selected for their incubator/accelerator program.

Green Heroes is a good fit with OCAD’s vision to focus the power of the cultural industries, creativity, scholarship and smart entrepreneurship to solve the most pressing social and environmental issues of our time.

We lost a truly great Canadian and storyteller today. Sad is too small a word to sum up the loss I felt when hearing about Farley Mowat passing away. I met him on several occasions first as a proud Canadian nationalist defending our distinct Canadian culture during the 1988 Free Trade debate and later as a producer of three biography series Lucky Breaks (2000), Northern Lights (2005) and Green Heroes (2013) for my production company CineFocus Canada.

My visit to his summer home in Cape Breton to film this segment of Green Heroes captured a man, though in his 90s, in fine form. After our interview we went to his writing room to get shots of him at work (writing still on a manual Underwood typewriter.) As we set up I said, “I bet you’ve done this a thousand times.” “Oh no, he replied, you’re the first camera to come up here.” I’m not sure if he was teasing but it certainly added to the distinct honour of being inside Farley’s writing world.

Feisty and fun loving is his how I’ll remember him. As he walked with wife Claire and dog Chester, he stopped in his vegetable garden. He lifted the one remaining squash in the late summer light and recited this famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: …It was a happy scene that day and he was a gracious host.

Farley’s stories gave me a deep love for the North, for Nature and our Native land. His outspoken activism showed me how important it is to protect all that makes this country great. We’ll remember you and carry on your fight to protect Mother Earth and all her creations. Rest in Peace Farley Mowat.

Farley Mowat with GreenHeroes producer Joan Prowse

Premiering Sunday April 13 on CBS’ Showtime is the investigative series Years of Living Dangerously. In it, Ford and other Hollywood celebrities and respected journalists span the globe to expose the dangers resulting from years of living without serious regard for our planet.  Green Heroes applauds CBS’s Showtime for airing the series in a key program slot on Sundays at 10 p.m. Green Heroes airs Sundays on TVO featuring stories of celebrity and everyday people  taking on climate change.

The first episode of “Years of Living Dangerously” features Harrison Ford as he travels to Indonesia; there he witnesses the deforestation of the country’s once plentiful jungles to support the palm oil industry. Even elephants living in state parks are at risk. Poisoned to make way for the replanting of trees, these elephants are just one of many species facing extinction.

The two other investigations done by NY Times Journalist Thomas Friedman and Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle show the direct result of increased carbon emissions on our planet’s temperature and make the connection between droughts and social-political conditions – such as civil unrest in Syria and unemployment in the bible belt of America. In both cases, people are forced to move from their homes to the city, only to face under-paid, overcrowded, and stressful living conditions.

As a warm-up to a night of climate change enlightenment, tune into TVO as Green Heroes’ second season airs with two back-to-back episodes beginning at 6:00 p.m. Biting into Change features celebrity chef Jamie Kennedy and legendary music producer Daniel Lanois. Green is the New Black tracks three fashionistas as they take on the mega beauty biz.

At the Green Heroes Academy embark on a personal journey to make a difference with a mobile app filled with fun, family focused activities. Go the extra mile with challenges like the Transport Mission and make a difference– one green act at a time.

Planet in Focus, Canada’s largest environmental film festival and leading environmental media organization, will present environmental documentaries to celebrate Earth Day in Cineplex and other major theatres across Canada from April 23 – 25. Get tickets.

Our Back to Nature episode featuring Robert Bateman, Olivia Chow, Shaun Majumder, Ta’Kaiya Blaney and others, was selected to be among the documentaries shown on Thursday April 24. Green Hero Rob Stewart‘s documentary Revolution will also be featured on April 23.

Back to Nature explores the many benefits of escaping from our indoor world and into nature. The TV episode, along with the entire second season of Green Heroes, is set to re-air on TVO with back to back episodes starting April 13 and leading up to Earth Day.

Thanks to celebrities like Neil Young and Yoko Ono, timely issues like the annual dolphin capture in Tajii Japan and the threat of an expanded tar sands development near Fort McMurray are in the news this month.

Green Hero, Ric O’Barry’s campaign to stop the annual dolphin capture that condemns these beautiful sea creatures to a life of captivity or worse, slaughter, led celebrated peace activist,artist, and wife of the late John Lennon, to write to the government of her native country, Japan on January 20.

Ric’s campaign to end the inhuman practice began more than forty years ago. As a former dolphin trainer, his life made a one hundred and eighty degree turn when his star pupil Flipper died in his arms, a victim of neglect after the hit 1960s TV series came to an end.

Ric’s campaign finally caught the attention of photographer Louis Psihoyos. nearly thirty years later. Although Louis had never made a film, the documentary he made about Ric and his campaign resulted in an Academy award for his directorial debut The Cove.

The film’s success raised awareness far and wide and caught the attention of female racecar driver, marine biologist, and Green Hero Leilani Munter. Leilani was so moved by the film, that her racecar and racing gear now carry the film’s logo to racetracks like Daytona, where it reaches millions of racing fans.

Leilani’s campaign to protect the planet is featured on-line and in the Green Heroes’ TV episode Oil Changers. The episode, which also stars hockey defenceman Andrew Ference and Tar Sands campaigner Clayton Thomas Muller airs on TVO.

Clayton Thomas Muller is our featured hero this month for the work he has done raising awareness of the impact Tar Sands development is having on First Nations communities. His campaign gained added support earlier this month when musician Neil Young staged a series of concerts with Diana Krall to raise funds to support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations with Neil asking the government to honour the treaties made with First Nations people and put a stop to further expansion of the tar sands in native lands.

Since then Neil’s stance has garnered further support from other artists including Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, actor Neve Campbell, author Michael Ondaatjje and Green Heroes Sarah Harmer, Gord Downie, Tzeporah Berman, Andrew Nikiforuk and David Suzuki.

Greetings and Happy Holidays from the Green Heroes team! December brings the new year with festivals of love and friendship, and may we continue into the new year with that profound love for each other and the planet we live on. Here’s to optimism as we head into 2014!

Planet in Focus, Canada’s largest environmental film festival opens Thursday, November 21 featuring an  array of films and events that includes our own Green Heroes: Back to Nature TV show and its new companion mobile app.

The Festival kicks off with an opening night celebration with Canadian eco-hero tribute to Inuit director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner) and the premiere of John Walker’s latest documentary, Arctic Defenders.

The festival has something for everyone. School field trips to see Rob Stewart’s ‘Revolution’ and TVO’s ‘The Water Brothers’, an industry day, pitching and award competitions, and this year’s international eco-hero winner, Col. Chris Hadfield’s appearance on closing night, Sunday November 24.

Green Heroes is proud to have Back to Nature screen as part of Green Family day on Saturday morning at the AGO. The documentary explores the issue of Nature Deficit disorder with commentary from twelve year old Ta’Kaiya Blaney, Shaun Majumder, Edward Burtynsky, Andrew Nikiforuk, Robert Bateman, Olivia Chow and more.

This free 9 a.m screening, at the AGO, is follwed by a Q & A with Ta’Kaiya and a demonstration of our new Green Heroes Academy app. Afterwards families can try out actions in the Back to Nature mission aimed at getting kids and their parents to re-connect with the great outdoors.

Green Heroes would like to offer a free screening pass to the Planet in Focus film festival to the first person who posts a picture action from the ‘Back to Nature’ mission in the  Green Heroes Academy app. Users will have to join the Green Heroes Academy Facebook page to have their picture post on Facebook.

1) Play or Download the Green Heroes Academy on your mobile device @ www.academy.greenheroes.tv

2) Join the ‘Green Heroes Academy‘ Group on Facebook

3) Select the Back to Nature mission in the app and do any of the photo missions!

4) Post to Facebook or tweet about it with #greenheroestv

November marks the transitionary period from vibrant fall foliage to winter’s beautiful crystal clear skies…and all the pale and muddy shades in-between.

While some may be delighted to see the seasons first snow flakes fall from the sky, others may not feel so cozy to the thought of the coming winter landscape. Nevertheless, we will continue with cheerful optimism – and what better to spread that November cheer but with the launch of a new Green Heroes Academy Contest!!! [I can already hear the forming snow flakes cheer from the skies] To celebrate Canada’s transition from Autumn to Winter beauty (and with it the coming holiday season), Green Heroes partnered with Donna Bishop’s Green Beauty salon to award November’s winner with a $125 certificate for use at the salon along with a consultation.

Green Beauty is a full service hair and beauty salon location in beautiful Lawrence Park in Toronto, as well as an online boutique. At Green Beauty, we are beauty fanatics who won’t sacrifice performance or quality in our skin care, make up or hair care. And we insist that these products are clean, healthy and safe for your entire family.  How do we decide what’s safe? We don’t. We decide what works. Founder and makeup artist Donna Bishop tests every single product to ensure it meets our high performance standards (several brands are used on actors in films and TV series). We let the experts decide what is safe, like David Suzuki and Environmental Defense. That means there are no carcinogens (cancer-causing), endocrine disrupting (mess with your DNA), or animal testing (that’s right bunny—you’re safe). All the ingredients are listed, every single one, whether you buy online or come into the salon. No surprises. Love that.

To win the prize, this month’s action is to introduce us to your favourite eco store (for clothes or beauty products) and tell us why you like it.

Watch what NOW Columnist (and Green Hero) Adria Vasil loves about her favourite eco store as she gives us a tour of The Big Carrot in Toronto.

Here’s how to enter:

1) Play or Download the Green Heroes Academy on your mobile device @ www.academy.greenheroes.tv

2) Join the ‘Green Heroes Academy‘ Group on Facebook

3) Complete Action: Beauty Mission – Shop Wisely – Action 2: Introduce us to your favourite eco store (for clothes or beauty products) and tell us why you like it.

4) Upload to the Green Heroes academy Facebook group with ‘#GreenHeroesContest’ in the caption.

5) Share! The most likes on Facebook wins.