When the kindergarteners in Ashley Rogers鈥� class at Hugh Mercer Elementary School learned that they could win a pizza party for recycling the most paper, they knew they were up to the challenge. 鈥淭hey were like, 鈥極h, we got this,鈥欌�� Rogers said. Instead of tossing their arts and crafts projects and completed worksheets in the trash can, the students collected the paper in a bin to be recycled.
After two weeks, they鈥檇 amassed 90.47 pounds of paper 鈥� and earned their pizza party. The Fredericksburg Clean and Green Commission and the Rappahannock Solid Waste Management Board, which serves Fredericksburg City and Stafford County, sponsored a school-wide recycling contest at Hugh Mercer Elementary this month.
Hope Mikelson, the R-Board鈥檚 community outreach supervisor, said the contest was a pilot program that she hopes to take to Stafford elementary schools next year. 鈥淲e want to get the children involved in recycling early on, so they鈥檒l carry it on through their lives,鈥� Mikelson said.聽