Wanda Urbanska - Nothings Too Small to Make a Difference: Simple Things You Can Do to Change Your Life & the World Around You

Nothings Too Small

to Make a Difference

Simple Things You Can Do
to Change Your Life & the World
Around You

ALSO BY WANDA URBANSKA AND FRANK LEVERING

Simple Living: One Couples Search for a Better Life

Moving to a Small Town: A Guidebook for Moving from Urban to Rural America Fruit Orchard Cookbook

ALSO BY WANDA URBANSKA

The Singular Generation

Christmas on Jane Street (with Billy Romp)

ALSO BY FRANK LEVERING

Blue Light: Poems from a Life

The Bicentennial of John James Audubon (contributor)

Copyright 2004 by Wanda Urbanska and Frank Levering

All rights reserved under

International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines
for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council on Library Resources

Cover photograph Martin Tucker

Photo stylist Anne Waters

Jacket design Debra Long Hampton

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Urbanska, Wanda, 1956

Nothings too small to make a difference / by Wanda Urbanska and Frank

Levering ; foreword by Ed Begley, Jr.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-89587-297-8 (alk. paper)

1. Simplicity. 2. Conduct of life. I. Levering, Frank. II. Title.

BJ1496.U73 2004

646.7dc22

2004009345

To our son, Henry Urbanski Levering,
and to our future: Young people everywhere

Contents

When Wanda Urbanska, Frank Levering, and their six-year-old son, Henry, arrived in my Studio City home one February morning earlier this year, I was meeting strangers who lived a long way from Southern California. Though Id heard of their work, our paths as advocates of treading lightly on our environmentally fragile planet had never crossed. But the two families didnt remain strangers for long. While Henry played with my four-year-old daughter, Hayden, I got acquainted with Wanda and Frank, comparing notes and working all morning with a television crew on their much-needed series for public television, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska.

That time together launched a friendship. Beyond that, it reminded us why we three adultsalong with my wife, Rachellework as we do to heighten awareness about environmental stewardship. As Hayden and Henry explored various corners of our house and yard, the answer was always in earshot: those children. We do the work we do as environmental activists because children around the planet will come of age in the world we pass on to them.

For quite a few years nowsince I first glimpsed those stirring photographs of a rising earth taken from the moonIve tried in a variety of ways to underscore the idea that one persons actions can make a positive difference for our environment. Individuals play a vital role in the health of our planets overall ecosystem, and there are many things all of us can do to make our common home a better place to live. In choices I and many others have made involving home energy use, food, waste, and transportation, Ive learned thatas Wanda and Frank saynothing is too small to make a difference, that any positive step, large or small, is helpful. Its important to remember, Ive learned, that among those thousands of things each of us can do, you dont have to do all of them. Anything helps! Not everyone can change the entire world, but we can all try our hardest to change our little piece of it.

From many years of committed activism, I know that getting involved in organizations that work to help solve our environmental crisisthat work through political, business, and community channelsis an important piece of the puzzle. But I also know that taking action in your daily way of living is both crucial for the big picture that confronts us all and deeply rewarding on a personal level.

Thats why Wanda and Franks book is must reading. If you are looking for down-to-earth, levelheaded ideas to live your life in a simpler, more thoughtful, more environmentally responsible way, Nothings Too Small to Make a Difference is the book to read. If you are looking for inspiration to live your life in closer alignment with your values, Nothings Too Small to Make a Differencewith its delightful stories and useful tipsis the book for you. Heres a book that could not be timelier, both for you and for our planet.

As they do in their television series and in a previous book, Simple Living: One Couples Search for a Better Life, Wanda and Frank tell stories of transformation wonderfully well. And they gently connect with an American public eager for change, yet still searching for practical solutions. Our world makes progress thanks to the practical idealism of people like Wanda and Frank. For many years now, they have been living lives that speak to our better natures, that spur us to action. Nothings Too Small to Make a Difference is the distillation of years of life-tested wisdom, of hands-on experience in living life more consciously. Read this book and new possibilities will blossom in youlike the blossoms on the cherry trees in Frank and Wandas orchard in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Someday soon, I hope to bring my family to visit that beautiful orchard that I have only read about. In the meantime, there is this important book for all of us. Read this life-changing guide to the best thats deep within you, and your own life, surely, will make a greater difference.

Ed Begley, Jr.

Studio City, California

April 2004

A book comes into being by a mysterious alchemy otherwise known as blood, sweat, and tears. But thats only half of it. The other half of the story of Nothings Too Small to Make a Difference is the human circle of encouragement and support surrounding the two authors. That human circle has made all the difference for us, and it is too big a circle for us to acknowledge here every person in it. But we can at least thank some of the people to whom we are indebted, fellow travelers who believe as we do that small steps lead to big stepsthat, down the road, small is big.

This book is a book and not merely a gleam in the authors eyes thanks to the pragmatic visionaries at John F. Blair, Publisher, themselves the heirs to the vision of the brilliant and idiosyncratic company founder, John F. Blair, in publishing singular and culturally stimulating works. From the outset, we felt wonderfully supported by the hardworking folks at John F. Blair. We also felt a rare sense of kinship with them as fellow businesspeople and practical idealists who are deeply involved in the life of our communities. We thank Carolyn Sakowski, the delightfully modest president of John F. Blair, for her early and sustained faith in us and our work. We also thank the tireless (and charming!) Anne Waters, Ed Southern, Sue Clark, Debra Long Hampton, and Kim Byerly, each of whom we have gotten to know and admire. To Steve Kirk, editor in chief, who pored over the manuscript and offered numerous and incisive editorial suggestions, we are indebted for as bracing and fine a line-edit as two authors could hope for anywhere.

A number of people helped birth the book, offering suggestions for subject matter and for persons to talk to, offering their moral support, and, in some cases, offering their guest rooms in our travels! We particularly want to thank old friends Carol Holst and Mal and Ellen Hoffs in Los Angeles and Alex Kern and Becca Grunko in Boston for their warm hospitality as we went about our work. On the home front, Pat Gwyn Woltz provided the sort of day-to-day moral support that could only come from a true guardian angel. And Pats daughter, Mary Woltz, contributed important ideas to our idea bank. Ann Vaughn, our dear friend in Mount Airy, looked forand foundevery opportunity to help, often at great personal sacrifice. Also on the home front, key players in our North Carolina circle of support were Copey Hanes, Zach Smith, and Nick and Nancy Bragg of Winston-Salem; Ann Belk of Charlotte; and Paul and Cecelia Belk, Hattie Brintle, David Bradley, Swanson Snow, Rich Kunkel Gene Rees, and Burke Robertson of Mount Airy. A special thanks goes to Linda Brinson of Stokes County, North Carolina; Dr. Aldona Wos of Greensboro, North Carolina; and Lady Blanka Rosenstiel of Charlottesville, Virginia. Our talented office manager and editorial assistant, Laura Lyerly, contributed mightily to every phase of the books development. Without all these folks, both the book and its companion public-television series,