Project Tandem

In honor of Clean Up the World Weekend we’re celebrating people who are celebrating people who are cleaning up the world. (Capiche?)

Our friend Morrigan (Mo) McCarthy and her boyfriend Alan Winslow are biking across the country…They call this little 10,000 plus mile bike ride Project Tandem.

Project Tandem (so-named because there are two photographers and two bikes) is really about the American people and what they’re doing for the environment. It seeks to celebrate the uniqueness of the green movement and the little things people are doing to “green” their lives, their communities and even the world. Mo and Alan plan on capturing the stories of these “environmental activists” through photos and audio recordings, which they’ll turn into a web-based multimedia project.

They set out at the start of this week (on September 15th) with a year’s worth of stuff crammed into their bike panniers. They started in Rockland, Maine and are heading south, passing through most of the east coast states, across the southern states, up the Pacific coast, then through the Rockies and the Mid-West next summer. In all, the dynamic duo hopes to hit 36 of the lower 48 states by October 2009 (although they just might add a few extra stops along the way if they hear of any good stories).

What makes Project Tandem so cool isn’t that Mo and Alan are willing to bike back and forth across the country–others have done it in the past, and many more will do it in the future. No, what makes it cool is what they’ll be doing when they’re off their bikes. Their journalistic journey will feature the environmental efforts of the John and Jane Does of America. The photographs and sound bites Mo and Alan collect will tell the stories of these ordinary people doing things to make a difference in the world. Hopefully these stories will inspire people to do things-even little things-to clean up the world… because every little bit counts.

One more nifty thing about Project Tandem: They’re partnering with teachers at schools across the country. The students will research the environmental issues in the regions Mo and Alan will be biking through (providing Mo and Alan with a free research staff) and in return, Mo and Alan will tell the kids all about their adventures. (If you’re a teacher and want to get your class involved, you can click here.)

We wish them the best of luck on their journey and look forward to hearing all of the incredible stories they collect. You can follow their adventures on their blog: http://projecttandem.blogspot.com.

And remember, it’s Clean Up the World Weekend, so pick up some litter, support organic agriculture, emit a little less CO2-or at the very least take a shower.