pic: Karibou WAI

[Millory]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Can you share a little bit about what your team objectives were in doing this, what you plan to do with the recycled school materials, and how you obtained permission from the school administrators?

Actually, this project would make an excellent white paper if you haven't already written one regarding it.

Jane

Well here's the background story...
At the end of the 2007-2008 school year, a friend of mine and I walked the halls of our school and saw the trash bins overflowing with binders full of unused paper, unused notebooks, and perfectly functional binders. Both of us having rocky financial situations in our homes, we decided to find boxes and carry as many unused items as we could find back to our houses. We recycled all the old handouts and used papers in the binders, and made duct-tape covers for binders that had been written on. We ended up with thirty perfectly good binders, fifteen notebooks, pounds of looseleaf paper, and subject dividers.

This idea I proposed to my team, and we promptly pursued e-mail correspondence with administrators at our two local high schools to arrange the project.

-The first phase is the collection of the unused supplies. On locker clean-out days, collection bins were placed throughout the school. Students left their unused supplies in these marked bins, with a team member standing by to direct students to where the supplies are to be placed. We took personal responsibility for providing, setting up, monitoring, and removing the bins required for the project.

-Next, we arranged a sorting and restoration site. The plan was to sort out all papers students may have left in their binders and folders, and recycle them. The most lightly used materials could then be inspected and sent to charities to provide less fortunate kids with school supplies. The items that do not meet the standard required to be appropriate to send to a charity could be restored and used by team members and available to other students in need upon request.

The amount of paper thrown into the trash on a daily basis, even, at schools is absurd. We wanted to tackle the issue of wasted school supplies as well in an attempt to help not only the environment, but also those in need of supplies.

We also extended our effort to two of the local middle schools. Hopefully we can expand more in coming years if we obtain enough manpower.

[Karibou]

Great summary, Mallory

We have already had five collections (three days at one high school, one at the other, and one day at one of the middle schools), and we're running out of space to put materials, people to help with the collections, and time to sort through the collected items.

We had the first middle school locker clean out today, and it was HUGE. We collected A LOT more items than we had expected. However, we did end up doing a lot of trash picking again (A LOT of trash picking, rather). Apparently middle school students think that once a recycling bin is overflowing, it's of no use and they can throw their brand-new school supplies in the trash >.< rather than set them next to the bins.

(I've realized that this is actually something that is picture worthy...I'm uploading a few more pictures as I'm typing this)

[Barry Bonzack]

After an experience like this, it doesn't feel like there is enough hand sanitizer in the world. Acquiring gloves from the careteria or maintenance most likely would have been a good idea.

This pic reminds me of my WAI when I was in high school.