By JOHN E. WEARE
KAB
Writing is easy most weeks. Settle on a topic, incorporate information and opinion and the message reaches whoever reads it on the printed page or lit screen. However, I also like to step away from the keyboard and talk to people about Keep Alliance Beautiful in person. Yesterday (September 24) offered a pair of opportunities to reach about every age group.
The Alliance Recreation Center’s (ARC) health and wellness day for area third grade students had been on our office calendar for weeks. KAB has been a longtime participant in the annual event. Emma, our education coordinator, was planning to run the station though realized she would need to be out of town that Thursday. I told her I would attend in her stead. Planning was pretty straightforward. We had been following a tried and true formula to engage the children: tell them about Keep Alliance Beautiful then divide into two teams for a recycling relay!
Classes of various sizes rotated through indoor and outdoor stations for about four hours, not counting a lunch break when a few Grandview kids invited me to eat with them. My spot was out on the playing field behind the building shared with other presenters including the Nebraska State Patrol and a gigantic pair of lungs represented by pink pool noodles. Grandview, from Alliance Public Schools, brought more than one class joining students from St. Agnes and IELS in Alliance and students from Hemingford and Bayard. I talked to the kids about KAB’s areas of emphasis: recycling, litter prevention, and beautification & community improvement. At school, home or both most of the kids and their teachers have regularly participated in these activities. They offered a lot of information about what and how they recycle and there were a fair number of questions as well.
I think the recycling relay will be a fun memory. Each team competed to see who could win (earning “bragging rights”) by being the first to pick up one item at a time and place it in the proper bin. Participants needed to know the difference between aluminum and tin cans and also find the proper place for plastic and cardboard. Anything else on the grass was supposed to end up in the “trash” bin. That included typically recyclable items like sheets of paper to trash such as rocks.
Perhaps KAB’s part in the day will lead to more recycling in homes and classrooms.
A couple hours after gathering the bins and leaving the ARC, I assembled materials for another venue. Matt and Larry helped empty our Ford F250 and I put things in the bed to give away: lick tubs and gallons of hand sanitizer. Carolyn Marlatt assembled a box at the office with orange bags and instructions, crayons, sticky notes, wildflower seeds, etc. A table, chair, banner and sign rounded out the kit. I set up at the Farmer’s Market in the park. It was important to interact at the last one of the season after missing the previous opportunities.
Not everybody stopped, yet I talked to quite a few people about recycling. It is great to discuss what we do at KAB and how it can be done better. I did give away a green lick tub even though people passed on the jugs of hand sanitizer we received from Alliance Public Schools. There is plenty of it if anyone would like to refill bottles at home or work. One couple signed up for our free senior curbside route. Many people left with something advertising KAB.
One-on-one conversation brings out ideas. Talking in person is great whenever and wherever I am able to visit with anyone at the office, recycling center or around town. Contact us at 308-762-1729 or keepalliancebeautiful@gmail.com with comments, ideas or questions, or to schedule a presentation about recycling.