An online article for you

Dear Children,

I invite you to look at an article that includes mention of me. I am honored to be part of this group of environmentalists. Click here.

Love, Nana Greta

How about an event on October 24?

Dear Children,

This photograph is to show you that I had fun along the way when I was walking my 1150 miles from New Orleans to the Canadian border. This fancy setup was in front of a house in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Most of you will recognize this beautiful woman who walked almost 50 miles with me in July, right before she went to Brazil to teach in the PanAmerican School in Bahia. She is my daughter, Ms. Sofia Hart, and she is the one who suggested that I have a blog especially for children. I'm so glad she did.

About your comments: thanks to all of you who wrote nice things to me. I love to hear from you. I apologize to those whose names I missed before:

Gai and Igor and someone who didn't write his or her name - thanks for your comments. Let me know if I missed anyone else.

Billy and Chris, when I was your age I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was around 14 I wanted to be a writer and called myself Inky because I always got ink on my fingers when I wrote with a fountain pen. Now that I'm grown up I keep finding new things that I want to do.

What can you do for the environment at your school? A special event on October 24 which is the International Day of Climate Action. Talk with your teachers about it. You can get lots of information on this website: www.350.org. You can register your event and it will be counted along with almost 1500 other events in over 100 countries. It doesn't have to be something complicated and difficult.

One requirement for the 350.org International Day of Climate Change is that you produce a photograph with the number 350 in a creative way. You can see examples on the website.

I hope to hear from you about your ideas.

Love, Nana Greta

PS - Robert, a late happy birthday for 9/9/99

Now that I'm home, what next?

My last week on the road included many interesting sights. I thought these horses, under the trees with the flowers in the foreground, were beautiful.

I watched these girls fishing with their father - they caught three little fishes which they were going to cook up for breakfast the next day. I thought to myself: "These children are two of the grandchildren I'm waling for."

The last day was very rainy and windy, but nothing bothered me because I was so happy. Here we're all laughing because my umbrella turned inside out.

Dear Children,

I'm at home now, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's a beautiful, sunny day in September and I just did a little work in my garden, which got neglected because I wasn't here to do my share of taking care of it through the summer.

When I came in from the garden I read all the new comments on the blog, and I went back to March to find some of your comments there. I may have missed some so if I don't mention your name please remind me. Today I will write to all of you, whether you have written a comment or not - I appreciate your reading even if you don't respond. Here are the names of children who didn't get on the list last time:

Susan, Barbara, Anya, Anabela, Guilherme, Katie, Rani, David, and Chloe - Thanks for adding your comments. I will try to answer all you said and asked but not by name.

Coins - Unfortunately I didn't keep count of all the coins I collected, including those that others found when they were walking with me and contributed to the collection. Some of the coins are very old and damaged, and I plan to take a picture of them to show you. I think only a bank will accept them. My daughter, Ms. Hart, found a lot of coins, including dimes and quarters. Sometimes other people who were walking with me found bigger coins while I kept finding pennies. My guess is that all in all we collected about $5.00, but I spent some of the coins as I went along, so we'll never know.

New York/New York City - During my walk I didn't get very close to New York City at all. I was walking in the state of New York, through the cities of Binghamton, Syracuse, Cortland, Watertown, Canton and Potsdam, and many other villages, ending up in Rouses Point on the border with Canada and the state of Vermont.

Working for the climate - Many of you are doing good things for the Planet Earth, at home and at school. I like hearing about your efforts to recycle (including recycled art and posters), to use less water and electricity, and to learn more about global warming. It's wonderful when you share what you're doing and what you've learned with other students and with your family. Good job! I hope your student council (STUCO) can do good things for the environment.

When you grow up - I was very moved by your thoughts about what you would like to do when you grow up. I will work hard for you to have a better world to grow up in. Actually, whatever your occupation is - engineer, actress, teacher, nurse or doctor, etc. - you will have many opportunities to fight pollution and global warming. And during your time off you will be able to do things like walking a long distance to call attention to climate change.

I want to thank all of you for your enthusiasm and your kind words about my courage, and your wishes for my safety. You make me want to work all the harder for the Earth.

So what shall we do next? Please tell me what you're thinking and doing. Maybe you want to plan an event for October 24 when people all around the world will be doing things to demonstrate their desire for more action on the problem of Climate Change. I hope to hear from you. (And Happy Birthday to Nani and Anabela!)

Love, Nana Greta