I received an email about halfway through the day yesterday from my mom asking me to give her a call at work. Of course I picked up the phone and called to see what was up. She was super excited and all bubbly about another email she sent me (which I didn’t see yet). I quickly opened my email to find this link:
My mom is the cafeteria manager at Triangle Elementary School and a few years back implemented a recycling/upcycling program for drink pouches. Part of their school nutrition program is a free breakfast program for their students which includes a drink pouch with every breakfast. With over 500 students in the school you can imagine the kind of waste this creates. Instead of trashing the pouches, she decided to start a TerraCycle collection program and earn points (to redeem for cash) for the cafeteria. It’s not a small undertaking cleaning out several hundred drink pouches EVERY day! Their school recycled/upcycled the MOST drink pouches in the entire program for 2012! Awesome!!
With the money that they have earned through the TerraCycle collection program the cafeteria has grown their own fruits and vegetables using a hydroponic garden in the courtyard. Students get to help harvest and maintain the gardens so they have a better understanding of where their food comes from. The cafeteria will use the fruits and vegetables from the garden to serve the kids fresh, organic food!
I love that her passion has helped, not only feed, but educate the students in her school about healthy eating. Kudo’s to my mama for her hard work!
To learn more about TerraCycle: http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades.html
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