Chair of the Board | Lindsey Godfrey CEO | Anne Soots Chief Development Officer | Angie Robinson Sullivan
The Promise
a newsletter for supporters of Girl Scouts of the Missouri Heartland february 2016
Girl Scouts of the Missouri Heartland Troop 61018 with Pitsco owner Harvey Dean.
Girl Scout Success Story A Girl Scouts of the Missouri Heartland troop from Pittsburg, Kansas has been working for over a year to collect plastic tops to recycle into park benches! That’s right, recycling plastic tops into park benches. While doing research to help her troop choose a Bronze Award Project, the troop leader ran across an organization called Green Tree Plastics that converts used plastic into products such as picnic benches, trash receptacles, and benches. In August 2014, the girls began saving lids — the plastic kind that come on bottled drinks, tubs of butter, and tubs of ice cream that otherwise would end up in the trash. They also began raising money through the cookie program to put toward the additional $200 cost per bench. By early 2015, the girls knew they had enough for
one bench (400 pounds of lids). But they didn’t stop. They kept working, and by August they had enough lids for three benches (1,200 pounds)! They spent hot August days washing all the lids, and, in late October, they headed to the Green Tree Plastics headquarters in Evansville, Indiana with their collection loaded up on a borrowed trailer. The troop has been recognized by Pitsco, a company that provides product, activities, and curriculum for educators in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and its owner, Harvey Dean. This month, the girls went before their City Commission to report on the project. Commission members were suitably impressed — so much so that they offered up the use of an empty hangar at the local airport if the girls agreed to keep saving lids and cashing them in for more benches.
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