Green Driving America Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit that educates about transportation efficiency. We're implementing Green Driving from the Start ©, an innovative project working with driver educators in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Oregon to help student drivers make transportation choices that will benefit the planet and themselves. These guest-speaking presentations in the classroom will show students the value of smart driving practices, the path to cleaner vehicles, and alternatives to driving. The benefits are saving money in fuel and maintenance costs, reducing CO2 emissions and fossil fuel use, and how green driving is safer driving. Your donations will help us meet our goal of 15 presentations, allowing educators to feature them in their classes.

I am Wayne Michaud, executive director of Green Driving America. I want to tell you my story about my passion for transportation efficiency education, how organization came to be, and its mission. 

But first, an overview of Green Driving from the Start : why it matters, the difference it can make, and what your funds will be used for.

Collectively, drivers have a great impact on the planet and themselves: The amount of CO2 emitted by vehicles into the atmosphere that impacts our climate. How much fossil fuel energy is consumed, from extraction to emissions. The air quality and health impact of tailpipe toxins. How much money we spend in fuel use and maintenance. And how safe we are as drivers.

THE PROBLEM: Most of us are not aware of it, but here's a few inefficient, highly impactful driving scenarios played out millions of times:

• continuing to accelerate after a traffic light ahead turns red, ending in a hard stop, hoping to be the first in line, only to have a car the next lane over gently coasting to a stop but not stopping because the light has turned green

• sitting in a mall parking lot, idling continuously with the engine on, browsing on a smartphone

• speeding, tailgating, weaving in and out of traffic

• driving a gas guzzling, polluting vehicle

THE PROJECT GOAL: Our Green Driving from the Start project goal for 2022 is bringing  guest-speaking presentations to driver education classes in the New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, plus the State of Oregon. Presentations will be conducted mostly virtually, given by trained college level interns (paid). Educators have the option to utilize students, capable in public speaking, from local schools they provide instruction for; these students will be trained. Presentations are 45 minutes, including a PowerPoint and four videos. PDF student handouts supplement the presentations given.

Students learn the benefits in how they drive (smart driving practices such as accelerate and brake smoothly to help maintain vehicle momentum, watch speed, avoid unnecessary idling, etc.) and what they drive (all about plug-in vehicles, EVs, federal and state purchase incentives, charging station infrastructure in each state, etc.), plus touching on alternatives to driving (public transportation, bicycling, walking, ride sharing, etc.).

THE BENEFITS:

• reducing CO2 emissions

• reducing fossil fuel energy consumption

• improving air quality

• saving money in fuel use and maintenance costs

• how driving a cleaner vehicle will extend these benefits

• how being a green driver equates to being a safer driver

• the lowering of stress

Please visit the Green Driving from the Start project webpage for presentations details.

This is one of four videos students see: What Is Smart Driving?

EXPECTED OUTCOMES: Our educational sessions will make a difference as a percentage of students will grasp and apply the compelling information shown. They (and by extension, some of the adults around them) will learn to be more efficient and environmentally responsible drivers as well as being shown the path to EVs. As the nation's existing fleet of internal combustion engine vehicles continues to predominate for the next 15-20 years, each of these green drivers will avoid the consumption of many hundreds to thousands of gallons of fuel, resulting in reductions of many thousands of pounds to conceivably many tons of CO2 emissions.

Green Driving America has experience giving these presentations having worked with driver educators in Vermont to give more than 120 similar presentations with past funded projects.


WHAT YOUR FUNDS WILL BE USED FOR

Your donations will help fund this project. Our FundRazr request of $2,550 for this campaign will fund 15 presentations, a portion of all the presentations the project is seeking funding for 2022. Doing the math, that is $170 per presentation. Sounds like a lot for a 45-minute session. Let us explain:

While this project is an absolute labor of love, it is time intensive with more than 600 hours associated with development and implementation time. Therefore, much of the funding requested will be for personnel compensation. Expenses incurred are also part of this request.

Specifics of what funds will be used for:

• $35 per presentation paid to trained college level interns

• Educator recruitment as well as public recognition for project: build project webpage, with continuous updates, on the Green Driving America website to provide information for potentially interested educators; search listings of hundreds of educators in several states to compile spreadsheets; send hundreds of individual emails to educators and respond to those interested; garner interest in the project by engaging driver education and environmental education associations through their websites and social media pages, and state departments of education; become a paid individual member of the ADTSEA (American Driver Training and Safety Education Association) as well as several state driver education associations; be invited to give virtual overviews of the project at several state driver education conferences.

• Creating presentation: build an animated PowerPoint slide presentation; search for videos most effectively demonstrating smart driving practices, promoting electric vehicles, and about alternatives to driving; create a handout, customized for each state operated in, showing smart driving tips and their fuel economy improvements, and an overview of EVs.

• Funding solicitations: the full project requires fundraising not only through crowdfunding sources, but spending hundreds of hours in searching and soliciting foundations as well as possible partnering with other organizations. 

• Recruiting and training presenters: recruit up to five presenters for 2022 from among college level intern sophomores to seniors with majors in environmental science/studies and/or communications from colleges in New England and Oregon; train them in virtual sessions. While they are considered volunteers as opposed to paid employees, they receive stipends of up to $500 each ($35/presentation), annually. This legally conforms to U.S. Dept. of Labor standards.

• Implementing the project: work with several dozen or more educators to arrange and coordinate presentations in their classes throughout a school year; also work with five college level interns in this process; keep a running list of presentations in a document and on the organization's project webpage.

• Miscellaneous project costs: CPA services, software subscriptions, crowdfunding fees, home office and associated utility costs.

WAYNE MICHAUD'S PATH TO TRANSPORTATION EFFICIENCY EDUCATION
When I was a young driver back in Pennsylvania in the ‘70s, I was a muscle car aficionado. I drove a fast car and raced it on the strip…and the street. Although climate change was not a known issue then, and pollution from vehicle exhaust was only beginning to be recognized, this was no doubt irresponsible and dangerous behavior.

Soon the oil crisis of those days hit and my attitude changed. Quite suddenly, I became conscious of conserving fuel. I was downright proud when practicing what is now known as smart driving methods, like going at or slightly under the speed limit, not accelerating hard uphill, and shifting gears at lower RPMs. This resulted in squeezing 24 MPG out of a dyno-tuned 400 cubic inch motor!

Fast-forward to the early 2000s, now living in Vermont. Climate change was becoming a mainstream issue. And my zest for fast cars had been supplanted with a passion for efficient, cleaner ones. I was so excited when purchasing a brand new 2005 Prius hybrid - THE green car of its day. What enthralled me was that it didn’t idle at traffic lights and when parked. This helped motivate me a year later to start an idle-free campaign in Vermont. Soon it was embraced by the state’s health and environmental organizations like the American Lung Association and the Sierra Club. We worked together in enactment of Vermont’s school bus idling rule and a few years later, a State all motor vehicle idling restriction law. 

By this time the campaign had turned into a non-profit organization and was awarded grants over four years to educate on the benefits of reducing idling. Our funded projects led to Vermont business and municipal fleets adopting idle reduction policies, and schools to participate in idle-free campaigns (that reduced idling on school grounds by 40% overall) along with driver educators inviting us to supplement their instruction by giving guest-speaking green driving presentations in their classes - more than 120 of them between 2014 and 2016, reaching about 2,000 student drivers.

With the success of having worked with driver educators to present green driving practices, combined with the recent rise of low- to zero-emission vehicles, the organization—now located in California—broadened its transportation efficiency advocacy beyond idle reduction alone, and Green Driving America Inc. was born.

ABOUT GREEN DRIVING AMERICA
Green Driving America Inc. (GDA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization based in Sacramento County, California with a branch location in Lamoille County, Vermont. Wayne Michaud is the founder and Executive Director of the organization. GDA is served by six Board of Directors members.

GDA is committed to helping drivers make transportation choices in their lives that will benefit the planet and themselves. To achieve this goal, we place emphasis on practicing smart driving methods to improve driving behavior, making the choice to drive a vehicle that consumes less fuel or no fuel at all, and for consideration of choosing alternatives to driving. Visit the GDA website. 

My passion for being a transportation efficiency advocate and educator has led to being presented with two air quality champion awards: from the American Lung Association of Vermont in 2009 and from the East Bay Clean Cities Coalition in California in 2019 (pictured). 

Thank you for your interest!