Jiminy Cricket is a moral compass, forever aiding Pinocchio in his quest to become a real boy, by urging him away from wrong and towards what is right. In ABC’s Once Upon a Time, that character – portrayed by Raphael Sbarge – is given a bit of a makeover. Jiminy is written a soiled past that he does his best to correct.
You will find that Raphael Sbarge isn’t all that different from his character. Not to say his past is soiled, or that he would even think to pretend that he knows all about what everyone should and should not do, but he certainly has concerned himself with the state of the world. When he attended Edmonton Expo this year to meet his fans, he gave people the option to pay for autographs or photos with him. All of these moneys went straight to the new Edmonton chapter of Green Wish, a non-profit organization he started up in the US. While Green Wish has been spreading through the States, it has finally made its way to Canada.
Green Wish operates differently than other non-profits in that it seeks to spread funding to local charities already in place. Volunteers set up shop in a city, seek out local organizations that are already hard at work, and aim to fund them. It is a very grassroots approach, which was important to Sbarge.
"We have figured out a way to be able to give people the ability to work within our infrastructure, and set up chapters around the country," he says. "We have them now all over the States, and [Edmonton] is our first international chapter. Once a chapter is formed, the board identifies a bunch of local, green non-profits. Earth, air, water, sustainable education are all being supported. It’s community helping community, and that is what this Green Wish chapter’s going to do."
In this manner, less of the money goes to operating costs for the charity – most of it funnels straight back into the community.
Sbarge will never take a salary for Green Wish. "I have got my day job. It keeps me plenty busy," he says. His drive to spread awareness comes from personal passion, not monetary gain.
"The concept is somewhat simple, but answers that itching feeling we all have if you read the paper or go online and read the news. There is a lot to feel uncomfortable about. It’s very easy to get to a place where you sort of go Oh, to heck with it. It is all so bad, why do anything?." It’s easy to get to a state of apathy, Sbarge says, and his hope is that with Green Wish people are able to see, feel and know tangibly that they are giving back directly.
"I never imagined myself as being an environmentalist. I mean, I planted a garden, I composted, I recycled, biked when I could – all those things. But I’m painfully aware of how precious the resources we have are. I have to say, Canada is much more thoughtful about the environment than the States are, in general. Anything that people can do, even the small things, really adds up. If you can buy a hybrid, turning off lights when you go out of the room, recycling, buying local... There are 75,000 people here: if a quarter of them all made the decision today to make a whole series of decisions that were conscious about the planet – that would be a huge thing. And it would continue to offset what is essentially a troubling trend, which is going in another direction. What I’m trying to encourage is not perfection, but progress."
With the Edmonton branch just set up, it is a careful balance between spreading further internationally, and expanding too fast. "We just had a request from Hawaii, and got a request from Mexico. It’s a little bit more difficult, internationally, at the moment. There are certain laws, obviously, [for non-profits] that don’t translate from the States to Canada, but we are figuring that out. When we call and say the board has identified you, so-and-so non-profit, and we want to give you money – and these are the small non-profits who really need the money, who don’t have the big shiny buildings in London, the ones who are really doing community work and spending 70 per cent of their time fundraising – they literally burst into tears in some cases."
In this way, Green Wish is providing funds to people that they know are passionate about what they are doing. They don’t pick ‘favourites’, either – every 24 months they rotate through to a whole new slew of non-profits to help fund.
Green Wish could always use more helping hands. Edmonton’s chapter was, after all, set up in part by a local fan whom was interested in what Sbarge was doing. Information can be found on the official website, as well as on Sbarge’s Twitter feed and Facebook page, where he posts fresh updates about what Green Wish is doing.
"Whatever you do," he says, "if you can’t give money, give time."
