By Libby Hopkins
Living green and eco-friendly seems to be the norm nowadays. All of us do are part to reduce our carbon footprint and try to improve our environment. Lisa Custer and Tara LaSalla have been living green for the majority of their lives. They started Going Green Tampa in 2010 and they have been making great strides since then to get all of Tampa Bay to live greener. Their business brings awareness to the surrounding Tampa communities about local eco-friendly businesses, events and sustainable living. “We talk to people about what it is to be more eco-friendly and what they can do to incorporate it into their everyday lives,” Custer said. “We look for businesses that fit our eco-friendly mold and we refer people to them to help build our network.”
Custer covers the Tampa area and LaSalla covers the St. Pete area, but they both would like to get involved with eco-friendly businesses and events in the Brandon community. “We are looking to branch out into other areas we don’t get out to very often like Brandon or Riverview,” Custer said. Their business has been growing over the past three years and they are in need of interns to help them reach more areas. “We have intern positions available in video content, journalism and marketing/social media,” LaSalla said. “We are hoping to get these positions filled in different areas of Tampa.” The intern positions are not paid positions as of yet, but the women feel that as funding improves the positions may eventually lead to being paid positions.
The ladies believe that once eco-minded citizens are able to locate businesses and events in their backyard that are sustainable and eco-friendly in nature, they are likely to spread the word and get involved with their community. They also plan on taking their business to a national level within the next year or two. “We hope to have our national website, Green Me Locally, up and running so other cities around the country can do what we are doing here in Tampa,” LaSalla said. If you would like to learn more about Go Green Tampa or if you are interested in one of the internships it has available, you can visit it on the web at www.goinggreentampa.com. You can visit its Facebook page (www.facebook.com/GoingGreenTampa) for more information on the different eco-friendly events in the Tampa Bay area.
