“ Little Red Schoolhouse”
You no longer have to travel far to donate your unwanted shoes and clothing
articles, thanks to a school grant we recently received. We have placed a “little
red schoolhouse” fixture at the far end of the Bill Roberts parking lot where you
can drop off your slightly used items now. The little red schoolhouse is simply a
collection box for used clothing and textiles and the items will be collected at no
cost.
The recycling program and structure is sponsored by Red Apple Recycling, an
independent Colorado 501C3 corporation assisting Colorado education by helping
fund wellness and sustainability programs in surrounding schools. Red Apple
Recycling supports educational settings committed to environmental projects and
will give money back to each school that finds a spot for the red schoolhouse to
implement a sustainability project that a school chooses.
Your donations of used clothing and shoes will be collected by Red Apple Recycling
Company from the red school house and sold to a local textile company who then
organizes all of the items and determines their many uses across the world. Red
Apple Recycling takes its proceeds and then helps financially support sustainability
and recycling programs in schools. Our school will receive the funds directly, based
on a written grant that we submitted to Red Apple, and the funds will be used to
help support and sustain our recycling and composting program.
Last spring, thanks to parent Tracy Ceravolo, we secured bag credits from Whole
Foods in Cherry Creek that help support our new recycle and composting projects
at school. We cannot reapply to receive credits from Whole Foods again until next
spring. We pay a monthly fee for composting and have secured worm bins (made in
the USA out of recycled plastic), which are $90 each plus a $25 per teacher fee
for worms supplied to us from the Urban Farm. We also need to purchase more
receptacles for the areas throughout the school where students wash their hands
so we can compost all of the paper towels. While the composting and recycling
projects are wonderful, they have an associated cost which we want to supplement
with programs like this so that we can continue these environmentally supported
programs.
When you begin to go through your summer items to get ready for winter and have
items that no longer fit, deposit them in the bins at school after morning drop off.
Thanks so much for supporting this project that will assist us in maintaining our new
environmental programs at William Roberts.