Recycling Grants Program Awards Eight Schools

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Tuesday, November 20, 2018)

The Regional Recycling District in Pulaski County recently challenged public and private schools throughout the county to create or expand recycling education in their schools. The challenge was in the form of a school-grant contest for the best education campaigns about each school’s recycling program. An award of $1,000 each was available for winning schools. The applications contained the schools’ ideas for recycling programs, including whether the school had a current recycling program, what recyclables are collected and how, the number of students involved and their grade levels, other active volunteer participants, and how the grant money would be used.

Winning ideas from schools in the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special School Districts, and an independent and a non-profit Christian school in Little Rock ranged from the need to have in-school recyclable materials collection carts and beginning a paper recycling program to providing recycling education materials for teachers to assist in instructing students about the benefits of reduction, reuse and recycling.

The 2018 winners and the school contacts are as follows:

  • eSTEM High School located on the UALR campus in Little Rock; Chad Nall, 501-478-2100;
  • Forest Park Elementary School in Little Rock; Page Shurgar and Julie Fiser, Go Green co-chairs, 479-200-0504 (Shurgar);
  • Arkansas School for the Deaf in Little Rock, sponsored by Kevin Lentz and Bethany Hays;
  • Oakbrooke Elementary School in Sherwood; Donna Shea 501-833-1190;
  • Amboy Elementary School in North Little Rock; Teresa Penny 501-771-8185;
  • Pinnacle View Middle School in Little Rock; Yvette Thompson 501-447-8512;
  • Agape Academy in Little Rock; David Scott, 501-225-0068; and
  • The Anthony School in Little Rock; Dr. Julissa Buchmann, 501-658-8569, and Shana Nolen 501-529-1022.

“These school grants help teach students, and help students teach their friends and families the value of recycling, and provide them and their teachers with leadership opportunities,” said Craig Douglass, executive director of the Regional Recycling & Waste Reduction District in Pulaski County. “The program supports our primary mission and vision of protecting the public health and the quality of our shared environment through creative innovation, leading to the education and encouragement of residential consumers to participate in the improvement of our economic growth and environmental sustainability, beginning in our schools.”