I know where I will be taking my son on one of our upcoming weekends. The LA Bureau of Sanitation is hosting their annual open house series at their various centers.

The Open Houses will feature activities for the kiddos, demonstrations, recycle clinics and much more. The Open Houses will be held on various Saturdays from now until July. For a list of participating locations and schedule head here.

It’s funny but every single time the trash trucks arrive my son runs through the backyard to the our side gate, crouches on the ground and tries to get the best look of the garbage trucks. I  like to take him outside to watch, but he usually beats me to it and we can’t get him to budge. If your son or daughter is anything like mine, you don’t want to miss out on this event!

This week I had the opportunity to participate in a shop for The Child Hunger Ends Here Program at Walmart. This program gives a donation to every item specially marked Con Agra product.

I had a fun time searching my local Walmart for select products. You can check out my little shopping adventure here.  You can also watch the video to learn how to take advantage of the program and help give back to local programs.

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. However all opinions are my own.

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet with the Ford Bio Babes, Ellen and Angela  at the Ford Motor Company in Irvine.

Ellen and Angela are part of the all-female Biomaterials research team, which is dedicated to creating Innovations in green and sustainable technologies—like soy foam and bio-based resins—for use in Ford vehicles. In their spare time they also mentor female students interested in engineering and the sciences and were recently featured on PBS. They also are both moms! Love moms who are out there leading the way!

Ellen and Angela share some fun facts about Ford Green Innovation in action that I found pretty interesting.

Did you know that most headrests in ford vehicles are made from soy foam? 75% of all for vehicles have soy foam in the headrest. Ford’s  soy-based polyurethane foam seat cushions and seatbacks are now on more than 1.5 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles on the road today, representing a reduction in petroleum usage of approximately 1.5 million pounds every year.

They are also working on using natural fibers like wheat straw, which is the waste from wheat, to reinforce plastic material in Ford vehicles and overall reduce the weight of the vehicles, which in turns lowers Co2 emissions. Currently they are using plastic in the Ford Flex and is already making a huge difference in reducing petroleum usage by millions of pounds each year.

We are in the market for a family vehicle this year and I know one thing, I want a car that is fuel efficient and eco friendly. I was excited to learn about Ford’s innovative technology and the changes they are making in their fleet of vehicles.

To learn more about Ford vehicles  and innovations head here.