Green Oil Nation hit a road block on Saturday when the veggie-fueled truck that was the cornerstone of their entire summer experiment failed to make it out of East Brunswick, New Jersey.
“Had a little snag in the trip….no Roman, veggie oil truck or trailer, but Lauryn and I are still going cross country. We won’t have a Green Oil Nation website but we’re still going to be updating our facebook page,” artist Amy Saffner explained.
With Roman Meisenberg backing out of the trip, the newly named fourth artist did as well, leaving Green Oil Nation in the hands of Amy Saffner and Lauryn Yovino. They explained that though their trip will not be as eco-friendly as they had first imagined, the two are still going to keep to the ideas of greener living and try to make the trip as environmentally friendly as they possibly can. They will be camping out every night that they are on the road.
“We invested so much time and money into this,” explained Lauryn. “It would be crazy for us not to do this. We downsized everything, we only have a weeks worth of clothes between us, but we are going and we are going to stay as close to our original mission statement as possible. We’re still reaching out to people and we’re already involved with an organization–Strangers Helping Strangers.”
Founded in 1997, Strangers Helping Strangers was originally a group of five volunteers who formed a non-profit organization dedicated to holding food drives at concerts nationwide. Today, the organization has grown to nearly thirty official volunteers and has expanded its reach to include close working relationships with many nationally known bands.
Outside of their plans to work with various non-profit organizations, Amy and Lauryn will also have some of their artwork for sale. The two have also invested quite a bit of time in making hula-hoops to sell of their trip. When asked how they would fit everything into a Volkswagon Jetta, they exclaimed that, “every hula-hoop was able to fit.”
As planned, the two artists headed down to Manchester, Tennessee for the annual Bonnaroo festival that ran from June 11-14 before moving on to their next event.
Follow Amy and Lauryn’s roadtrip on facebook either by adding Green Oil Nation or by becoming a fan.
