Recycling Program True Community Effort

     Christ Methodist Day School’s National Elementary Honor Society (NEHS) has partnered with Christ Church and International Paper to launch a campus-wide recycling program. “When we met last spring to set our goals for this year,” remembers chapter advisor Julie Reynolds, “the kids kept coming back to recycling. It was clearly their main focus.” 
     Reynolds wasn’t sure how the group was going to implement such a large-scale project until a few weeks later when James McDonald, Manager of Sustainability at International Paper and CMDS dad, came and spoke to the fifth grade class. He shared information from International Paper’s “Go Paper, Grow Trees” curriculum, the purpose of which is to educate students about the benefits of using paper and to dispel the myths of its negative effects on the environment. McDonald also mentioned that International Paper already had a program in place to help schools start and maintain their own recycling programs.

     Reynolds and CMDS Headmaster Steve Jackson approached the church business administrator, Paul Makris, for project approval (CUMC provides the physical space for the school), who embraced the idea and asked if the church could join in the effort. So on August 31, IP delivered twenty-five recycling boxes, which NEHS members distributed around campus. “We’ve already had requests for additional containers,” an enthusiastic Reynolds reported. 
     
     NEHS members have divided themselves into teams, each responsible for emptying the bins for a particular grade level or office work area. Teams will place contents from those containers into larger bins for weekly pick up by International Paper.  Members of the Honor Society, whose four ideals are scholarship, responsibility, service, and leadership, also plan to visit the early childhood classrooms to talk about how the recycling program will work and to encourage participation. Fifth grader Mary Frances Hall says she hopes that the program will inspire younger students to also do things at home that will help the environment and make the world a prettier place “because that is what God expects us to do."