Holiday Gift Ideas
We have put together a list of ideas from across the state, for responsible, sustainable gift-giving options this holiday season, if you are able.
We know it has been a hard year for many of us and our communities, and so buying gifts for others is a privilege or simply not possible. We encourage sharing virtual experiences with your friends and family that will support sustainable practices and have included some of these opportunities on this list. Please let us know if you or your organization offers any of these free resources, or if you have other ideas for alternative gift giving that we can include.
Please share your ideas with us for local, sustainable, or creative / alternative “giving” options this year. Would you like to add your product or organization to the list? Simply fill out this quick form to be included!
LOCAL PRODUCTS
Royal Cup Coffee and Tea strives to be sustainably minded and a good corporate steward in all business endeavors. Click here to read more about their sustainability plan.
Higher Ground is dedicated to providing the finest coffees the world has to offer, fresh, to everyone. To ensure that farmers and the environment are protected in our search for the world’s best beans, we roast exclusively 100% Certified Organic, Fair Trade, and Shade Grown Coffees. Every decision at Higher Ground is a reflection of our commitment to Sustainability, Quality and Principle. HGC also partners with ARA, Cahaba River Society and Black Warrior Riverkeeper throughout the year.
Vero’s Coloring Book for the Rest of Us
This coloring book is part of “There’s No Place Like Earth”, a series of 19 paintings that took a year to conceptualize and create. It is an educational art show about the importance of respecting our environment and saving our planet.
Originally created for traveling, now is a great fit for pandemic hair! Local artist Vero created her own on-the-go dry shampoo since she couldn’t find any out there. 100% natural and tiny enough for a minimalist packer.
Mrs. Clean Green’s Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products
All-natural products that are environmentally friendly and non-toxic to people and animals. They are handmade in Alabama. All products packaged in HDPE plastic bottles and containers. HDPE is highly recyclable and environmentally friendly.
Their organic cotton socks are grown, spun and dyed in the U.S. and are some of the most comfortable, durable, and environmentally friendly socks around! Made in Fort Payne, Alabama.
My Vote Matters Merchandising (MVM) is a non-partisan, all-inclusive apparel merchandising company created to inspire civic engagement and voter efficacy across a modern electorate by merging fashion, political advocacy, and activism.
From the first “Dirt Shirt” tinted with that infamous red clay, earth creations has now grown into a full line of eco-friendly, clay dyed clothing made from sustainable fibers such as organic cotton and hemp.
Shu Shop x Harvest Roots Holiday Gift Set
Includes: 12oz Miso Napa Kimchi (SHU x Harvest Roots), 8oz Bourbon Barrel Aged Miso (SHU x Harvest Roots), 12oz Juniper and Meyer Lemon Sauerkraut aged with Sauvignon Blanc staves (Harvest Roots), 5oz “Last Call” Hot sauce (Harvest Roots), 3oz Kimchi Dust – house dehydrated kimchi, nori, sesame seed and porcini (Harvest Roots), 4oz Sancho Mustard (Shu), 5oz Dashi Vinegar (Shu), Locally Crafted, Native Species Snack Board, Snack Board Recipe Card, Miso Caramel Recipe, Miso Kimchi Dip Recipe
Naughty but Nice Kettle Corn Company
NBNKC specializes in unique sweet and salty kettle corn blends, offering the highest quality ingredients on each and every kernel. So whether you are looking for a comforting movie night treat, an impressionable client gift, or the perfect wedding favor, NBNKC is here to make relationships sweeter.
TasTea Wellness Blends is a premium tea company created by a nurse and produced in Alabama. Their all-natural blends are handcrafted with wellness in mind. The four flavor blends each have unique recipes to create a whole mood while drinking tea. Customers get to choose their mood while enjoying their effort to “drink wellness”.
Tea Town Alabama is a homegrown and organic artisan tea company in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Jonathan and Becca Gardner began Tea Town in 2014 with a desire to supply their community with delicious loose leaf teas made from simple, homegrown ingredients, paired with other locally grown herbs and fruits, and organically grown teas. Tea Town’s desire is to continue to expand their own garden and to personally plant, grow, and dry their herbs for the purest taste and strongest medicinal benefits.
Made in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Left Hand Soap Company, has 22 years of natural soap and skincare experience. You got skin, they got soap!
Walden Farmacy is a family owned and run small-scale permaculture style herb farm located in Bessemer, Alabama. They grow and wild craft small batch, sustainable herbal medicines with families in mind.
WilloughBee Farm and Apothecary
Products from Alabama Organizations
ALABAMA RIVERS ALLIANCE
Give the gift of an Alabama Rivers Alliance membership to the River Defender in your family!
ALABAMA AUDUBON
BIRD COLLECTIVE x ALABAMA AUDUBON [clothing, hats, patches, more!]
Alabama Audubon has partnered with a Brooklyn-based clothing brand called Bird Collective to create a clothing and accessory line featuring birds and birding hotspots found here in the state, with 20% of the profits going to support programs here in Alabama.
Including an awesome long-sleeve t-shirt designed by a UAB student honoring Alabama’s owls, a chimney swift t-shirt, stickers and more!
NEW ALABAMA CAR TAG benefitting Alabama Audubon
Love birds? Have a car registered in Alabama? Here’s your chance to support Alabama Audubon’s conservation and outreach mission in style!
ALABAMA COASTAL FOUNDATION
Visit their Shore Store for totes and towels, t-shirts, pint glasses, tumblers, mugs and more!
ALABAMA SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE NETWORK
CAHABA RIVER SOCIETY
Holiday gift ideas for the Cahaba River lover in your life
With a Gift membership of $25 you will also receive either a T-shirt or a Fry-Down digital cookbook.
With a Gift membership of $50 you will also receive Beth Maynor Finch notecards and digital Fry-Down cookbook
With a Gift membership of $150 you will also receive Cahaba Blueway book and digital Fry-Down cookbook
COOSA RIVERKEEPER
Trucker hats, t-shirts, framed Coosa River basin maps
CONSERVATION ALABAMA
Holiday e-cards, with a purpose!
DOG RIVER CLEARWATER REVIVAL
limited edition Dog River Clearwater Revival Sportsman ball cap style hat made of dry fit materials. Cost: $25 + s/h Contact Debi Foster at [email protected] to order!
FRIENDS OF THE LOCUST FORK RIVER
MOBILE BAYKEEPER
These awesome baskets include a signed hardcover edition of Saving America’s Amazon, the new book by Ben Raines, Braided River beer (six-pack), Fairhope Brewing beer (two beers), Red or White wine (one bottle), Nova Espresso coffee, Callaghan’s gift certificate, CD of Stan Foster, local musician, Georgia Roussos gift certificate (for Spinach & Artichoke dip), Cammie’s Old Dutch Homemade ice cream (one pint), Punta Clara Kitchen praline, Defend the Delta koozies and stickers, Baykeeper cups and koozies and more!
WILD ALABAMA
Wild Alabama believes that accessibility to the outdoors can be hindered by the high prices of good quality outdoor gear. We want public lands users to have the opportunity to purchase good quality, gently used outdoor gear at affordable prices. Visit the gear store to get started!
WILD & SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL ON TOUR IN ALABAMA
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Click here to read more.
Hosted by ARA, Energy Alabama, Waterkeepers Alabama and Flint River Conservation Association, the Wild & Scenic Film Festival is set for Thursday, January 28 from 6-8 pm CST. Join us for an evening of films — from the comfort of your own living room! Tickets are only $10!
BOOKS
additional books listed below.
Alabama’s Rivers: A Celebration and Challenge by Dr. Bill Deutsch
This book invites you to travel down rivers and through time to encounter the rich human history and natural wonders that have defined Alabama. Along the way, you will celebrate an array of magnificent rivers filled with unique plants and animals, shaped over the ages by a remarkably diverse geology. You will appreciate how rivers have served people from the first Paleo-Indian settlements to the present. Accept the challenge to restore and protect our rivers for their economic, cultural, and ecological benefits, but most of all because it is the right thing to do.
Southern Wonder: Alabama’s Surprising Biodiversity, by Dr. Scot Duncan
This book interweaves the disciplines of ecology, evolution, and geology into an explanation of why Alabama is so diverse.
Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s DIrty Secret by Catherine Flowers
The MacArthur grant–winning “Erin Brockovich of Sewage” tells the riveting story of the environmental justice movement that is firing up rural America, with a foreword by the renowned author of Just Mercy. Catherine was also featured in the 2018 Southern Exposure film, The Accidental Environmentalist: Catherine Flowers.
Saving America’s Amazon: The threat to our nation’s most biodiverse river system by Ben Raines
In this compelling portrait of the rough history of Alabama’s rivers and the lands they flow through, Raines makes a case that more has been lost in Alabama than any other state thanks to the destructive hand of man.
SPECIAL: if you’d like an autographed copy of the book with a personal message, email Ben directly at [email protected]
Click here to purchase a signed copy from Alabama Booksmith [Birmingham]
Click here to purchase a signed copy from Page & Pallette [Fairhope]
Click here to purchase a signed copy from Red Beard’s Outfitters [Mobile]
Known by Salt In this book of poetry, Tina Mozelle Braziel searches for home in the trailer park where she grew up and in the house she and her husband built by hand.
RESPONSIBLE RETAIL STORES
Sojourns Fair Trade (Birmingham)
Fair Trade Marketplace (Huntsville)
The Local Market (inside J&M Bookstore in Auburn)
READ MORE: What is Fair Trade and where can you find it in Birmingham?
VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES & OPPORTUNITIES TO SHARE
Virtual Learning and Hikes with Wild Alabama
Cahaba River Society’s Online Resources Library
OTHER IDEAS
ARCADIA POWER
Arcadia Power allows residential and commercial customers to purchase renewable energy for their homes and businesses. Arcadia will offset half of your electricity usage with wind Renewable Energy Credits for just $5 a month. Arcadia also offers community solar programs and makes it easy to support renewable energy whether you rent or own your residence.
For just $5 a month, you can switch over from Alabama Power and get power from wind and solar credits. It is really easy and your bill should be the same. You can switch back at any time. All you do is give them your Alabama Power account number and get set up with their billing.
BONUS: If you sign up using THIS LINK you will get a $10 credit. AND if 7 people sign up using that link, a generous donor will donate $500 to Alabama Rivers Alliance and $500 to Gasp! It’s a Win / Win / Win / Win / Wind!
Drexell and Honeybee’s Donation Only Restaurant
Consider a gift to this donation-only restaurant in Brewton, Alabama, where 100% of donations go to the operational cost of feeding the hungry. “You can find soul food all over Alabama. But you won’t find a meal that fills you up quite like this one.” Click here to learn more.
MORE SUGGESTED BOOKS
The following list of books were suggested during conversations at Alabama Water Rally. Please let us know if you would like to add additional books to this resource list. Stay tuned for a potential ARA Book Club coming soon!
- Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World
- The Unsettled Sector: NGOs and the Cultivation of Democratic Citizenship in Rural Mexico [enter code Fall20 for 40% off!)
- Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
- All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis [features an essay from Colette Pichon Battle and a poem from Water Rally participant Melissa Stewart!]
- Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents
- How To Be An AntiRacist by Ibram Kendi
- Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy
- Winner Take All by Anand Giridharadas
- White Fragility
- Me and White Supremacy [workbook]