alex1993
Registered: September 2010
City/Town/Province: Zanesville
Posts: 1
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The summer of my senior year, it hit me like a rock. I was leaving soon and I felt like I hadn’t made as big of an impact on my school and community as I could have. It was time for me to do my part and impact others with what I was passionate about. Recycling is my middle name and I felt like I could change peoples’ minds about the idea of helping the environment.
Because of my seniority at school, I knew I could make a positive change. Immediately, work on finding the funding and materials to start a recycling program began. Countless hours were clocked contacting local, state, and national organizations pleading my case and begging for help. Surprisingly, many generous people were able to support my cause. They made me feel like a million bucks for the efforts that I was investing in this idea. Immediately, I felt as if I was a piece of a much larger puzzle, like a part of huge family, who were all seeking one common goal and building on one another’s successes.
Now, four months into school, the small recycling project that I dreamed about months before has turned into an environmental change that has taken over the entire building. Money and materials began flowing into school from people who wanted to help us thanks to all the connections that I had made over the summer. A $250 donation from a recycling center in our area was given to my school to purchase recycling bins for the classrooms. A $500 grant was also awarded by Keep America Beautiful, a national non-profit organization dedicated to bettering the environment, because of the grant proposal that I submitted. A businessman then donated $200 worth of recycling materials for the school as well. Our local Goodwill is also picking up our recycling for free and provided us with dumpsters to put the materials in.
On the first day of school, I spoke about the new recycling efforts and an environmentalist got everyone pumped up about helping the environment. I then started a new club called “Team Earth”, the school’s first environmental and conservation club. We now have around 15 members who offer a wide range of talents to offer to the club. My school mates and friends ask me constantly whether “this or that” can be recycled and seem happy to be able to help.
Our latest project was during America Recycles Day. We decided to make this day into a week-long celebration full of reusable bag decorating, sign making, trivia questions, and future project planning. The club introduced the Cartridges for Kids Program which will help our school recycle tons of electronics. There is even a competition between classes to see what class can bring in the most materials. The most fun project of this week though was the creation of “The Recycling Monster”! Team Earth worked for the entire week to build a four foot robot/monster made out of completely recyclable materials. The Monster now stands in our lunch room watching those who recycle each day and cheering them on!
I could have never imagined or expected just how great this idea turned out. I had such small expectations, but now, I think that anything is possible. The kids at my school are so flexible and willing to listen, learn, and start helping the environment. This small idea now has the ability to extend beyond not just my school, but to multiple other schools in my community. Because of the success of this project, now turned into a school-wide program, Team Earth has some major plans for the future including several more collection drives and gaining appreciation for the act of recycling and conservation.
Did you know that the average adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 pounds of trash to his or her children? I bet you didn’t; not many people do. That’s okay, because very soon I think that fact will change; I am just one of many working on this revolution.
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