Not many posts happening recently, but a lot of emails, phone calls, and preparations being made. Yes, our reuse project and the America Recycles Day event have been shaping up nicely!
On the Redberry’s project, I was able to find and purchase the two gray plastic bins that will be at the shop for collecting their used spoons. I could not find any local shops that had the bins to Redberry’s specifications, so I had to order them online. They arrived last Friday and are waiting to be personalized and then delivered to Redberry’s. I already got some material and am working on the personalization and project description that need to go on the bin – we will not have any material at the shop other than the bins.
My goal is to deliver the bins by the beginning of next week and run the collection for the whole month of September. The spoons need to be retrieved from Redberry’s every night by 9pm and I need to rinse them and prepare a bag to take to Viera High School (VHS), which I will probably do once a week. The teacher at VHS, Ms. Susan West, asked me to make the first deliver after collecting at least 200 spoons.
With all that, the first drop off should be happening into the second week of September. Ms. West estimates that her students will be using over 1,000 spoons to build three 3x5 colorful sculptures that should be ready toward the end of October. I can’t wait to see that!
On the America Recycles Day event front, we have had a lot of activity. We secured a location for the event, more organizations joined in, and some were contacted but have not confirmed their participation yet.
The event, Recycling Fun - Toy Swap and Drop Off, will be at the Viera Regional Park - Rotary Pavilion. Brevard County Parks and Recreation is co-sponsoring the event and will have a table at the pavilion. We have received confirmation also from the Suntree/Viera Public Library and Head Reference Librarian Nancy Garmer will be bringing materials to share and will be collecting books/magazines/DVDs. We have not received confirmation yet from the Brevard's Green Team, Keep Brevard Beautiful, or the Brevard Zoo's Green Team. Other organizations are still being contacted and we should be meeting with the students from BCC now in September.
We have received confirmation that Pelly, the mascot pelican from Keep Brevard Beautiful, will come to cheer us up at the event!
We have posted a “Call to Artists” on the Brevard Art News site to see if any local artists who use recycled material in their work would be interested in participating too, but have not heard back from any artists yet. If you would be interested, please contact me at Info AT RecycleBrevard.org.
Nicki and I have been working on making the event known to the community. She prepared a paragraph to send to various local publications to be added to their calendars and I updated our website and made several posts on Facebook after creating the event on our page. We are also trying to get it added to some newsletters in the community so more families will be aware of the event.
The event, Recycling Fun - Toy Swap and Drop Off, is currently on Facebook, on the America Recycles Day site (listed under 32940 zip code) and also on Eventful under Family, Neighborhood, and Outdoors categories.
I need to start recruiting volunteers to help with all the games, activities, and set up/clean up. If you are local and would like to help, contact me at Info AT RecycleBrevard.org.
A lot more to organize and a lot more to come!
In the meantime, I researched, selected, and ordered a compost tumbler (and a book on composting – Let it Rot!), reorganized the trash cans in the kitchen, and started my very own home and garden compost. I am proud that I finally got that started after a lot of reading, measuring, and planning. In the near future, I will dedicate some posts to my experience with this home project.
PS: The post about Paris will have to wait a little longer while I get more done toward the projects, but it will be out eventually :-)
Recycle Brevard!
