Spring is here and its time to party!

A beautiful Arizona Spring is finally upon us! I can always tell when Spring is here by the smell of the orange blossoms. Mmmmm!

With beautiful weather and summer vacation around the corner, the opportunities for good, green fun are endless! For our blog post this week, I'll be giving you some tips on how to keep your Spring fun (and the beautiful plants sprouting up) green!

1. When having a big pool party, block party, barbecue, etc, make sure to have recycling bins out and clearly marked so all those disposable utensils and dishware don't go to waste. Or, better yet, use dishes that can be washed and re-used to prevent any waste!
If you have a garden, or want one, have a bin for food scraps that can be used for compost. Compost provides great nutrients for plants and is a good way to prevent leftovers from going to waste.

2. Don't waste paper on party invitations! With all the great technology available, there's no reason you can't design a cute e-vite and simply email your friends and family the party info! Some websites will even design invites for you if you aren't the artistic type. If you do need to mail invites, try using old boxes or scrap paper to make your invites. Recycled crafts always have an eclectic charm to them.

3. Get RSVPs! Knowing how many people to plan for can prevent over-buying and reduce waste. Avoid buying more food, drinks, and disposable eatery than necessary to prevent unnecessary waste.

4. Plan a local menu. When considering what food to serve, look to see what is locally available and in season. Local foods that are in season require much less travel and storage, thus reducing the carbon emissions associated with many foreign-grown foods.

5. Think green when decorating. Re-use decorations you have in your house or left over from another party. Small alterations can make repurposing decorations easy and the results will be just as spectacular as if you had bought them all new! A quick Google search will reveal a plethora of blogs and websites dedicated to repurposing old items and clever party decorations.

As you can see, throwing a more eco-friendly party doesn't have to be difficult and it can save you a little money! So enjoy the beautiful Spring and Summer months ahead and make sure to consider the environment while you enjoy it!

CAC Partners with Child and Family Resources to Support Teen Moms

As you may have seen through Fox 10 or the link to the article we posted on Facebook, Clean Air Cab has partnered with Child and Family Resources to help teen moms achieve success in the work force. 

Many teen mothers struggle to finish high school with the added responsibilities of a child at home. This can make it difficult for them to seek long-term employment to support themselves and their child. Even transportation to interviews or to purchase professional clothing can be a massive hurdle. 

This is where Clean Air Cab comes in. We have launched a "Drive to Success" program to give young women free rides to job interviews and to purchase clothing. Child and Family resources provides resources to assist young mothers in receiving their GED, like tutoring and child care, as well as assistance in finding employment and doing interviews. 

Clean Air Cab is known for its commitment to education through our partnership with ASU, but our commitment to family may be less well known. CAC knows that families are integral to our community, so in our efforts to support our local community, we strive to show our support for families as well, especially mothers. In fact, it's not uncommon to see a child or two around the office! Two of our managers had babies around the same time and took them to work daily while they were young. So those running CAC understand first hand the struggles that come with balancing a career and family and the importance of keeping family close. That's why this partnership hits so close to home for us and is so vital to our goals as a business. We know that if we are supporting the mothers in our community, we are supporting the children in our community and helping to raise future leaders, scientists, teachers, doctors, managers, athletes... in essence, we are supporting a brighter future for everyone!

You can read the original article through Fox 10 Phoenix here.  

Celebrate Spring Break Locally!

For those of us in education, whether we be students, faculty, or parents of students, it is Spring Break in AZ! And even if you don't get the week off, it's hard not to feel the Spring Break fever. So let's celebrate Spring Break and do something fun this week!

For many of us, a beach trip is not in the cards. Fortunately, we have a lot of awesome fun things to do right in the Valley! So, in honor of Spring Break, I'm going to list a few fun ideas close to home that everyone can enjoy!

Phoenix Art Museum- If you are looking for a relaxing, cultured experience, the Phoenix Art Museum is a must see. And, with free admission on Wednesdays, it's an inexpensive option too!

Tempe Town Lake- if you are craving a day at the beach, but can't escape to CA, Tempe Town Lake is the next best thing! With spacious lawns for tanning and picnicking, paddle boats, and restaurants and shopping in the nearby Mill Ave district, you have plenty of options to have the quintessential Spring Break beach day away from the beach.

Girls' day out- get some girlfriends together and splurge on a facial or mani-pedi and a little shopping in one of the great shopping centers in the valley. Scottsdale Fashion Square, the Mill Ave district, Fiesta Mall, Chandler Fashion Center, and Superstition Springs Mall are just a few of the great shopping centers around the valley. Pamper yourself, have a fancy lunch, and do a little shopping!

The Great Outdoors- Arizona has some of the best weather of the year in early Mrch, so if you enjoy the great outdoors, now is the best time to soak up the sun! Go hiking on one of our many gorgeous trails, many of which are practically IN the city, so no long drives required. If you have a day or two to spare, drive up to northern AZ and go camping on some of our beautiful campgrounds.

Kids' fun in the sun- For good family fun on hot days, head to a pool! Sunsplash in Mesa has some great water slides and wave pools. Local junior highs often allow people to swim in their pools for a very low price as well. Just be sure to keep an eye on the kids around water so everyone has a safe and fun time!

Check out your city's website for local events coming up to get more great local Spring Break ideas!

And don't forget to make your Spring Break extra relaxing by letting Clean Air Cab take you out on all your local Spring Break adventures! We recently added a text message notification system so, after you book your trip, you can get a text message letting you know when your driver is on their way and who they are.

Comment below or on our Facebook page to let us know what your local spring break plans are and what you think of our new text message system!

   

Education is Important!

I started working at Clean Air Cab the summer after my freshman year of college. I'm graduating from Arizona State University the end of this semester and I'm still at Clean Air Cab. In the nearly 3 years I've been there, I've had something like 4 positions. I sometimes joke I could run the company if I needed to! 

I bring this up because I want to talk about Clean Air Cab's involvement in education. Many of you have seen our awesome ASU cabs driving around, but did you know we donate money to ASU to provide a yearly scholarship for a student in need?

I brought up my own story to illustrate how deeply Clean Air Cab is committed to supporting education. I started there as a call taker with hardly any experience. I started 6 months after opening, so the company was even smaller then. I quickly came to know the managers and owner. They were always willing to work around my crazy school schedule so I could support myself. As I continued there, I was given the opportunity to move up and work in the office. I worked full time as an office admin for a summer and was allowed to work part time handling the accounts when I went back to school. They saw potential in me and let me have the opportunity to learn a whole new skill set and push myself in a professional setting that would otherwise have been unavailable to me. 

Steve, the owner of CAC, and the managers there don't just throw money at causes to look good, they really care! And they show that in more ways than the wraps on our cabs. 

"Clean Air Cab is excited about making this donation to Arizona State University," said Steve Lopez, the company's founder. "Our business is built on sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation, and we're proud to support the next generation of innovative young leaders as they learn and put forward their own solutions to our greatest 

challenges."

Many of my friends and other college students have had the opportunity to work for Clean Air despite inexperience and odd schedules. So, when you take a Clean Air Cab, know that you aren't just supporting the scholarship we donate to, but you are supporting the college students who work there too! By supporting Clean Air Cab, you are supporting our investment into a better future.

For more information on our involvement with ASU, go to our website, or simply click here.

**I should note, there are a lot of amazing people who work at Clean Air Cab that aren't college students, but I wanted to focus on our involvement in education this week. I'll talk about some of the other types of people we support at another time. 

Clean and Green!

Every day at Clean Air Cab, we clean a LOT of cars. Every morning and every evening the cars are inspected and cleaned before they are allowed to go out on the road again. That many dirty cars, along with maintaining a clean office, this means we use a lot of cleaning products! We try to run our company using as many eco-friendly practices as possible, and cleaning has become a significant part of company activities, so why not write about it?

CAC is a very family friendly company as well as an eco-friendly company. So when we think of cleaning, we aren't just considering the environment when trying to eliminate chemicals from our workplaces, we're thinking of our kids (who often frequent the office) too! Finding greener ways to do your cleaning is good for the Earth and your health!

The cheapest, non-toxic, natural, all-purpose cleaner you can use is simply vinegar. Yes, plain old vinegar! Vinegar isn't a new trick- plenty of mothers and grandmothers have known of its secret cleaning powers for generations- but that doesn't mean there aren't new things we can do with it! 

The biggest deterrent in using vinegar as a cleaner is it's unpleasant smell. I for one, do not want my home smelling like a pickle after I'm done cleaning it. Fortunately, it is incredibly easy to infuse vinegar  with other scents! For a lemon-scented cleaner, peel two lemons, put the rinds in a jar, pour vinegar over them and let it sit for a week. then put it into a spray bottle and clean just about anything in your home! For other scents, add drops of essential oils to spray bottles of vinegar, like lavender. Once the vinegar is infused with a scent, the "vinegar smell" will dissipate shortly after spraying it and you will only be left with the delicious scent you have infused! (Using cleaning vinegar, which is a little more concentrated, is recommended. Depending on what you are cleaning, you will want to dilute the vinegar with water as well.)

Vinegar, it seems, can be used to fix almost anything from clogged sinks to stained carpets, to chemical build-up in bathrooms! Check out my sources below for more great tips!

The scent-infused vinegar idea came from this great blog!

Check out this webpage to learn about even more of the many uses of vinegar!

                                                              

Keeping our resolutions!

Keeping in the new year's theme (January isn't over yet, I can keep this up for another week!), I thought I'd write about how to be successful in keeping our new year's resolutions! Last week I wrote about what some of Clean Air's resolutions were, so it only seems fitting to make sure we have a plan!

Fortunately, psychologists have done a lot of research on resolutions so we don't have to guess at how to keep our resolve up! So here are a few tips:

1. Make resolutions! It seems like a no-brainer but people who don't think resolutions are worthwhile only have a 4% chance of reaching goals while 46% of those who commit to resolutions reach their goals! And most of the 54% who don't keep their resolutions fall off in the first week. So if you can make it past the first week you have a fighting chance! Hopefully we've all made it past the first 3 weeks of the year.

2. Keep your goals realistic. Maybe instead of shooting for a marathon when you're an inexperienced runner, try for a 10k first. Maybe try to loose and keep off 30 pounds instead of 100. know yourself and push yourself, but don't overdo it. Reaching too far often causes people to become discouraged.

3. Start when YOU are ready, not necessarily at the first of the year! So for those of you who didn't get around to making resolutions January 1, try for February 1! Know what will work best for you.

4. Get support! Support from others is key in keeping yourself motivated and accountable. Ask a friend or relative to call you every so often to remind you of your resolution and keep you accountable. Post your resolution and your progress to Facebook or any other social media site. Those little "likes" can be just the boost you need to keep going!

5. Log your progress. Keeping record of your progress helps you to see how far you've come and makes you be accountable to something, if not someone. It also helps you to see that your goal is in sight! (I really like sticker charts. Some people may like notebooks or online planners)

6. Do one thing at a time. Do NOT make 50 resolutions! It's hard enough keeping one! You will likely get overwhelmed and quit early, accomplishing none of them. You can do two if they are related though, like loosing weight and exercising more. But trying to stick to a diet while quitting smoking may be too much to take on at a time. Tackle things one at a time and really blow your goals away!

7. Reward yourself! you're working hard, reward your progress! But make sure it's a reward within your goal. For example, don't reward yourself with a big piece of cake after sticking to your diet for a week. Maybe go out dancing or get a pedicure instead. Helpful rewards will give you the boost you need to keep going.

I got all of this awesome information from an episode of NPR's Science Friday which can be found here. (CAC's owner, Steve Lopez, and I share a love of science and innovation so anytime I can sneak some cool science in here, I will!)

Good luck with all of your goals and resolutions this year! Comment here or on our Facebook page and tell us what your new year's resolutions are and how you are doing! Maybe Clean Air Cab can be apart of helping you become a new and improved person!

New Year, New Opportunities!

With a new year comes a renewed sense of determination to make a difference and do better than in the past. That is especially true for Clean Air Cab as we look forward to giving back and making more of an impact on the community and growing as a company. 

Las year we gave $10,485 to Susan G Komen, $9,012 to Phoenix Children's Hospital, $23,543 to Mesa United Way, and a scholarship to ASU.

This year, we are hoping to beat that! 

This past year our managers, employees, and drivers have worked with the Boys and Girls Club, Helen's Hope Chest, Arizona Breast Feeding Bag Project, Phoenix Children's Hospital, raised money for families in need, volunteered with food drives, helped each other move, given free rides to friends and strangers in need, and so much more! And that's just on their own personal time!

Clean Air Cab values service and giving back because our community is only as good as the people in it. We believe we're all in this together and if we can help out, we should! 

I have personally seen CAC become a company of tight-knit people (we refer to ourselves as a "work family") who value family, education, people, and the planet!

This year we hope to continue expanding the company and our "work family," give back to the community more, and make the planet a little greener. 

Keep a look out for our new developments in social media including more contests/giveaways, a Pinterest and maybe an Instagram too! We are determined to make 2013 an even more spectacular year than the last!