Are you seeking a partnership with a local eco living social enterprise that offers sustainable and impactful workshops?

ReNewy Living offers a variety of workshops aligned with your staff team goals or school and early childhood curriculums. Workshops engage your workplace team or young people to explore innovative, actionable ways to care for each other, our communities, our places and our planet.

Workshops are designed for high school students, teacher professional development as well as fundraising.

Eco Living Workshops for High School Students (Stages 4, 5, & 6)

These workshops empower students to make decisions and take actions that contribute to creating a sustainable society. These workshops authentically integrate classroom curriculum with real-life experiences, and will enhance diverse learning styles and foster a robust educational foundation.

Clothes Swap Event

Fundraising Idea | High School

A school community clothes swap is an ideal fundraising initiative that helps to raise funds through an event that promotes decluttering, minimalism, and mindful consumption, with the proceeds going towards your school’s project or cause.

Clothes swaps help your school community embrace the sharing & preloved clothing economy, take localised action, foster positive community connections, and promote shared responsibility for reducing household textile waste.

Start Here with a Clothes Swap...

Op Shop & Preloved Guided Trail

Business Studies | HSIE | Creative Arts | TAS | High School (Stages 5 & 6)

Op Shop & Preloved Trail

A guided op shop trail can be tailored to align with your curriculum goals. This approach offers students the advantage of integrating the NSW school curriculum with practical, real-life learning experiences whilst also contributing to local social organisations and environmental initiatives.

The guided op shop and preloved trail also gives your young people confidence to step into the preloved shops and learn how to op shop with purpose. 

Discover more about Op Shop Trails...

Sustainable Slow Stitching for Beginners

Creative Arts | TAS | High School (Stages 5 & 6) | Homeschooling

Sustainable Slow Stitching Workshop

Sustainable slow stitching embraces your your people’s intuitive style and rhythm. Create a unique piece of textile art whilst learning the art of hand sewing by using scrap fabric remnants and non-traditional resources, all joined with simple stitching techniques.

Read about Sustainable Slow Stitching...
Email Mardi here to customise your workshops for students...

Eco Living Workshops for Professional Development

These eco living workshops will help educators integrate concepts, knowledge, skills and values of sustainability into your teaching practices. All workshops have a sustainability perspective which values diversity, partnerships, relationships and behaviour change rather than purely knowledge and skills.

Workshops can go towards your Elective Professional Development as a “professional commitment activity” to “enhance teaching practice to effect positive change and impact on student or child learning progress and achievement”.

Creating Art from Waste

Creating Art from Waste

Early Childhood Educators | OOSH Staff | Vacation Care Staff | Family Day Carers | Primary School Teachers | High School Teachers

Foraged marine debris and clean discarded waste are sources of inspiration for creating something new from what we already have around us. You will learn how to use a range of techniques, splashed with imagination, to create your unique creation.

This is an excellent team building workshop as well as learning how to embed creativity into your teaching and learning environment.

More info here about Creating from Waste...

Nature’s Treasures: Place-Based Impermanent Art

Early Chlidhood Educators | OOSH Staff | Vacation Care Staff | Family Day Carers | Primary School Teachers | High School Teachers

This outdoors, active workshop helps you take in your surroundings and connect with place. Prompts encourage creative, impermanent, community-focussed works of art that serve to inspire reflection, environmental awareness, and mindfulness for a deeper connection with nature. 

Return to your learning environment with different perspectives on how to embed the outdoors and creativity into your teaching practices.

Ask Mardi about Nature's Treasures here...

Green Cleaning Workshop

Early Childhood Educators | OOSH | Vacation Care | Family Day Carers | Primary School Teachers | High School Teachers

Making the switch to DIY green cleaning products is possible when the alternatives are just as powerful as the artificial chemical-filled products. In this impactful workshop, you’ll learn which chemicals to avoid and why switching to DIY green cleaning products are better for our health & the planet.

This is ideal for educators and workplaces that can have a daily impact on helping your team (and your cleaners) switch to green cleaning practices for a healthier indoor environment, and people health.

Find out how to start Green Cleaning...

Op Shop & Preloved Guided Trail

Op Shop & Preloved Trail

Suitable for High School Teachers

A guided op shop trail can be tailored to align with your curriculum goals. This approach offers teachers the advantage of successfully integrating the NSW school curriculum with practical, real-life learning experiences whilst also contributing to local social organisations and environmental initiatives.

The guided op shop and preloved trail also gives you the confidence to step into the preloved shops and learn how to op shop with purpose. 

This trail is perfect for teachers in the region to come together, learn how to effectively lead their class-based excursion to op shop or take the information back to the classroom. 

Discover more about Op Shop Trails...

Plastic Free Kids Play

Early Childhood Educators | Family Day Carers | Primary School Teachers

Plastic free kids play helps your family community shift the focus from single-use ideas, battery-heavy and plastic toys to play that values children’s curiosity, imagination, motivation to learn, ability to problem-solve critically, social connections, expanding language, creativity, and persistence!

Ask about Plastic Free Kids Play...
Email Mardi here for your customised professional development workshop...

Eco Living Fundraising Events 

These eco living events are the perfect fundraiser to bring your internal and external communities together. By having Mardi and her team facilitate your eco fundraising events, we have the expertise, efficiency, and guidance that may lead to a more successful and profitable sustainably-minded event for your fundraising cause.

Clothes Swap Event

Early Childhood | Primary School | High School

A school community clothes swap is an ideal fundraising initiative that helps to raise funds through an event that promotes decluttering, minimalism, and mindful consumption, with the proceeds going towards your school’s project or cause.

Clothes swaps help your school community embrace the sharing & preloved clothing economy, take localised action, foster positive community connections, and promote shared responsibility for reducing household textile waste.

There are many formats to choose from – clothes swap, formal wear swap, toy swap, gift swap – nearly everything is swappable!

Start Here with learning how a Clothes Swap works...
Email Mardi here to ask about your eco living clothes swap fundraiser...

Sharing the Good Word…

The Marine Debris to Art school holiday workshop was received with great positivity & enthusiasm by our community. The conversations throughout the day were valuable and I appreciate your guidance, leadership, and relaxed nature.

Elise Budden / City of Newcastle

Thank you so much Mardi for a wonderful workshop, and for being so accomodating to my Eucalyptus and Tea Tree allergy.

Shaye / Low Tox Green Cleaning Workshop Participant
Mardi sparkles with down to earth enthusiasm and commitment. Her friendly, relaxed and to-the-point content sustained engagement. Enjoyment and learning were paramount.
Leonie / Opshop-ology Panel Discussion Attendee

Mardi’s Low Tox Green Cleaning presentation was inspiring and full of useful recipes, hints and tips.

Alicia Sheen / City of Newcastle

It was wonderful for all ages!

Participant / Marine Debris to Art Workshop

Frequently Asked Questions

Workshops & Events for Educators and the Education Sector

ReNewy Living is located in the Newcastle region of NSW. The main geographical areas for workshops are within the Newcastle, Port Stephens, Hunter and Central Coast regions.

However, I will consider some areas of Sydney, including the Sutherland Shire, Eastern Suburbs and northern areas of Sydney. Workshop costings for these areas will reflect additional travel and time.

Sure thing! Education conferences are the ideal place to bring creativity and inspiration into your program.

ReNewy Living is located in the Newcastle region of NSW. The main geographical areas for most of my workshops are within the Newcastle, Port Stephens, Hunter and Central Coast regions.

However, for education conferences I will consider other areas that are accessible by car. Workshop costings will reflect the additional travel, potential accomodation costs and time for attending the conference. 

I also do speaking about eco-living topics, which is more accessible nationwide. Visit my speaking page for more information…

All workshops are ideal for educators who strive to embed sustainability into their teaching practices and learning environment. These workshops are designed to share the awareness that living sustainably doesn’t have to be all or nothing to make realistic change.

My workshops highlight the positives of what we can do to live a more creative and resourceful lifestyle, acknowledging that we are at different stages of sustainable living.

Education is at the heart of Mardi’s professional background! As an early childhood educator for 20 years, Mardi is still keen to share her knowledge with all stakeholders involved in the education system – young children, young people, teachers and families.

A range of environmental education workshops and presentations can support the early childhood, primary and secondary school curriculums by engaging interested students in meaningful learning.

ReNewy Living is based in Newcastle NSW and can come to many schools within the region, as well as Central Coast and parts of Sydney. Email Mardi to start the possibility of bringing authentic sustainable living into the classroom or the outdoors.

Mardi has a NSW working with children check.

Go to my speaking page for alternative possibilities at your school…

Most workshops are designed as a 2 hour workshop, and vary in cost depending upon the type and location of the workshop.

Email Mardi to discuss your workshop timeframes and budget so we can work out the best style of workshop for your purpose.

All workshops are ideal for flexible learning spaces – spaces that allow for a range of chair-seating, floor-seating, table-seating and standing. This could be in a cafe, a shared space, community hall, office, child care centre – wherever your community is, these workshops can be there to meet them.

Some of the workshops use technology as a complementary enhancement of the presentation. Adjustments to the workshop can be made if technology connectivity is known to be unavailable prior to the event.

Stories, News & Voices

Sharing stories that strengthen our commitment to nature, community, and a healthier planet.

Bring Your Own Sustainable Habits to Your Overseas Family Holidays – Part 3

If we could predict how our ingrained daily sustainable habits would work in another country, travelling would be a breeze. [...]

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Toronto NSW Op Shop Guide

I discovered the Toronto op shops at the start of the new millennium when we moved to Lake Macquarie. It [...]

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Connecting with Nature for Purposeful Sustainable Living

Intentionally connecting with nature for purposeful sustainable living helps set the foundation for understanding why we need to live mindfully. [...]

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Hop in a Kayak to Relax and Explore the Outdoors

The early morning sounds of fish jumping, kookaburras laughing, magpies warbling and the sun sparkling gently on the water is [...]

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Water is More than a Daily Resource

My lifelong relationship with water is more than just being a useful and valuable daily resource. The connection strengthens my [...]

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The Scary Truth About Plastic

The Real Horror at Halloween This is a guest post written by Charlie Thompson from The Clean Collective. Some links [...]

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Madeleine’s Eco Living Journey Started with Tox-Free Beauty

I would love you to meet Madeleine. I met Madeleine whilst out and about in the NSW snowfields. My unusual holiday [...]

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5 Ways to Reduce Your Need to Buy

The convenience of buying stuff now has moved stealthily into our everyday living psyche. Our “throw away buy new and [...]

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Hot Tips for Op Shopping Mindfully

It’s tempting to go to the op shop with the urge to buy everything just because it’s cheap or one-of-a-kind. [...]

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Maitland City Op Shop & Preloved Shop Guide

Set halfway between Newcastle and the vineyards of the Hunter Valley, Maitland is a town with rich architectural & social history. [...]

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Socks are Miscellaneous Textile Waste

Instigated by an inbox message, I discovered that socks are miscellaneous textile waste that add to the little book of [...]

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Books to Motivate You to Start Living a Plastic Free Lifestyle

Just thinking about going plastic-free can be overwhelming. But the more we know, the more confidently we can take action [...]

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Microplastics are a Gigaproblem

Plastic doesn’t go away nor biodegrade. It just breaks up into irretrievable microscopic, teeny tiny pieces that pollute our water, [...]

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Bateau Bay Op Shop Guide

Bateau Bay is known for its picturesque, unpatrolled swimming beach located within the Wyrrabalong National Park. Relax and connect with [...]

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DarNET! A Coloured Spectrum of Waste

Waste conjures up a motley mess of blacks, greys, and browns – a disarray of worthless, useless or defective stuff. [...]

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Discover People’s Eco-Strengths in our Community

This series of short stories and videos come from everyday people in our community. Each story gently encourages you to [...]

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Starting a Simplified Co-op with Free Range Eggs

The more I knuckle down into living a more sustainable, low impact life the more I realise how large corporations [...]

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5 Tips for Loving Your Trusty Natural Deodorant Paste

If you’ve recently ditched your traditional antiperspirant deodorant and switched to natural deodorant, here are 5 tips for loving your [...]

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How the Buy Nothing Project Changed My Way of Living

Buy new, buy now retail shopping is available to us every day, both online and in-store at massive shopping centres. [...]

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Going Low Tox was Linda’s Moment of Truth

Going Low Tox was Linda’s Moment of Truth I would love you to meet Linda… I met Linda through our early [...]

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