Cartridges for Kids’s Weblog

Check out the ‘Comment’ posted by Maggi Alexander under …WHAT YOU DO at the top of the page.

We’re impressed, and moved.  And we wholeheartedly agree with the Ordinary Hero nomination.

“Our school, Hembree Springs Elementary, had a month long contest in September 2007.  The class who brought in the most recycled items won a reward.  One of our second grade classes won & they decided to spend the money earned from recycling on a classroom pet.  It took the students & teacher about a month to come to the decision on what type of pet.  The decision was a Hermit Crab.  The students love taking turns feeding the crab & the best part is he can stay by himself on the weekends!”

Now that’s a face only a mother hermit crab could love.

This landed on our desks today.  It’s an article from the Chicago Tribune Magazine and it reads:

Practical Lessons
I have been teaching the children of Chicago for almost 30 years. The materials I needed to help my students become successful have never been provided. So I found another means - recycling.
I began when I was 20 and teaching kindergartners who had no crayons.  I gave them crayons that my boyfriend, a part-time janitor in a suburban school, regularly swept off the floors.
Now I recycle used copier cartridges, printer cartridges and used cell phones for money, and it pays for most of our special-education department’s needs.
I have used Cartridges for Kids for about 10 years and have received thousands of dollars for our children. Not only do we receive money for the recycling, but our students also earn Service Learning hours toward graduation by packing the materials for shipping.
Judy Benson
Bogan High School

Earlier we ran a post, ‘School Personnel Beware’, about a school holding a collection contest.  If the students were able to reach certain goals in terms of number of items collected the school staff were to perform certain, not so endearing, tasks.  One of which was to kiss a pig.  Well,  we’ve now got photo proof of how many items the students collected.  Take a look at the picture sets below.  Obviously the collection was a success.  Sandford’s a fun school for sure.

Doesn’t the pig look thrilled.  Geesh, they even dressed it up.  Like that helps!

Kaaapow!  Gettin’ pied.  A couple of guys killin’ the mic.

Enjoying the baby food spinach, kinda.  Getting hauled off to the pokey.

“We did a cell phone & cartridge drive around Christmas time.  We sent out flyers before the break and reminders afterward asking parents to bring in anything replaced over the holidays.  By January 20th the collection box was full!  One of our dads works for a company with drivers that replaced their old cell phones, so he brought in 4 boxes of phones!  A parent volunteer boxed everything up and called FedEx for a pick up.  The next thing we knew we were being told we raised over $2000!“

Cathy V.
St. Luke Catholic School

Actually, it was more like ‘over $2200′. Nice work St. Luke Catholic School!

Newsworthy news… from the front page of the Mansfield News-Mirror paper.
Anna May Daulton ES Principal Erwann Wilson and students ’saving the earth’ one cell phone, ink & toner cartridge, laptop, DVD, video game and digital camera at a time.  In truth saying ‘one at a time’ seems silly after hearing they amassed nearly 400 items to be recycled in 2 weeks.  Whoa!  Nice job Anna May Daulton ES and parents.

Just think if every CFK participant put just a little, just a smidge, just a teeny tiny bit more effort in over a 2 week period, how many items we’d keep out of landfills.
Let me give you a little hint… OK, 400 items X number of participating schools = Hmm, (punching buttons on calculator) I’d say it would be in the multi-millions.  Whew,  let’s get to work.

We’d like to welcome you to share, not only the milkshake, but some of what makes your program great.  Send us some of your more creative ideas so we can possibly share them with other participants in the CFK program.  Be sure to send pics if they add to the story.  We’ll keep the links up on the menu on the right side of the blog so you can send anytime.
We’re looking forward to some great submissions. I’m off to get a milkshake. Mmmmm.

Someone,  somewhere, while zipping across the great cellular highway, was inspired to creativity.  How can you blame them?  The typical handheld cellular device, while functional, is usually just not pretty enough.  What to do?  Well, dress it up with some faux jewels like this ‘Rhinestone Ringer”.

From time to time we’re going to post some of the more, er, uh, interesting phones here that we get as part of our recycling program.  We realize accessorizing your phone may delay your move to recycle it; but we hope that when the time has come to retire your Monet-esque device you send it our way.
The fine print: aesthetically improving your phone will most likely not add to the value when recycled. We do enjoy looking at them though.

If you do know Jack (Johnson that is) give him a hug for us.   Then get busy with your 3rd ‘R’ by recycling your Cell Phones & PDAs, Ink & Toner Cartridges, iPods, DVD’s, Digital Cameras, Video Games and Laptops.

We’d love to see some pics of what you do to make your program great.  If you’d like to share your pics; and everybody knows it’s nice to share, send them to us here.  We promise it won’t hurt.
Of course, we (Cartridges for Kids) will not distribute these images and will use them only with your permission.