Garbage Diggers.

by Andrew Allen

So, it was coming time again for a school field trip, but lacked the funds to do so. The year had dwindled down to its last couple of months, and we wanted to take the children, after all the hard work they had put into their school work that year, somewhere where they could just let loose and get rid of all the stress that had been built up that school year. We wanted to do something that could bring in the money and, with all the talk of going green today, to help out the environment in the process. Letters were sent out with the children detailing what the school was doing. It was encouraged that all plastic drink bottles and soda cans be brought to the school so that we could recycle them and raise money for the end of year trip. This was a three month long engagement and we ended up with good results. The 'help the environment' angle really helped out bringing in the cans. Children were to collect cans and bottles from their house and, if possible, from other sources like neighbors and local stores. Each week, we would give a little reward to the homeroom class that brought in the most cans as further encouragement in participation. Their gift would be like ice cream sandwiches for the entire class on Friday or extra P.E. time outside. The children were really worked up over this and the participation was great! With cans and bottles coming from more than one source, there was a great chance of this end of year trip happening. Over the three month period, more than enough was raised for the trip. There was also enough money left over for food and drinks as well. The recycling fund raiser had brought money into the school and less trash was being put into the landfills. It was a win-win situation for the students and the environment.