Paramount to Distribute Trees in honor of earth day

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

April 15, 2008

The Paramount Theater is inviting the public to celebrate Earth Day with an endeavor designed to literally make Charlottesville greener.

The theater will be giving away trees under its marquee on the Downtown Mall starting at noon on Tuesday, April 22. The 250 trees, a donation from the Virginia Department of Forestry, will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

“The Paramount’s staff is pretty enthusiastic about conservation, and we wanted to do something for Earth Day that would extend that excitement to the community,” said Kyle Rodland, Production & Facilities Coordinator. “We’ve made a lot of changes over the last year to make better use of resources -- we’re a large facility, but there are still things we can do.”

Efforts The Paramount has implemented to be more environmentally-friendly, reduce waste, and foster a culture of stewardship include:

Transitioning to energy-efficient lights in all fixtures that will accept them, with a goal of reducing energy use by 81% and nearly 297,000 kilowatt hours each month
Placing timers on lighting in the theater to further reduce consumption
Lowering the HVAC settings for times when the building will be empty
Making use of non-disposable dishes and silverware as well as cloth napkins
Offering only compostable coffee cups for hot beverage concessions
Clearly allocating areas for collection of recyclables in the administrative and backstage areas, with recycle cans soon coming to public areas of the theater
Saving office paper to be reused internally for printing or as scrap paper
Donating leftover food from performance days to local soup kitchens
Participating in Freecycle.org for recycling unwanted items

More about The Paramount Theater and its current series of events and performances is available on this web site or by calling the Box Office at 434.979.1333.