Cove campuses take first, second place in Fort Hood Area Recycle Bowl
By BRITTANY FHOLER
Cove Leader-Press
C.R. Clements/Hollie Parsons Elementary won first place in the 4th annual Greater Fort Hood Area Recycle Bowl recycling competition held in November and December, collecting more than 6,000 pounds of recyclable items such as paper and plastic and earning $200 in prize money.
Hettie Halstead Elementary won second place with 1,635 pounds of recyclables and Oveta Culp Hobby Elementary on Fort Hood earning third place with 1,335 pounds of recyclables collected.
The Recycle Bowl included schools in communities surrounding Fort Hood, from Copperas Cove to Lampasas to Florence to Temple to Jarrell and more, which were all invited to participate.
Members of the Student Council at C.R. Clements/Hollie Parsons Elementary collected the recycling from nearby classrooms during their meeting after school Monday afternoon before they were told the good news and results of their efforts by Christine Luciano, the Environmental Outreach Coordinator for the Fort Hood Directorate of Public Works.
The $200 prize money, which comes from Luciano’s own pocket, will be put towards the end-of-year dance organized by the Student Council, according to teacher and Student Council advisor, Jessica Rhodes.
Rhodes explained that the recycling was a school-wide effort, with each teacher having a blue recycling can in their classroom and students being encouraged to recycle papers and other items. Members of the Student Council collected the blue bins once they were full and weighed each bin before emptying them into the larger green, rolling recycling containers for custodians to then empty. The students kept a tally of how many pounds of recyclables they collected each time. Most of the collection is done during the after-school student council meetings and certain student officers are assigned to certain hallways, Rhodes said.
“It’s really helping to bring our school together, to teach the students how to contribute to their community, recycling and helping the environment, and it’s helping to build leaders,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes said the project also teaches students to prepare for the workforce by showing them how to come together to work hard and have a common goal.
Fifth-grader Austin Huckabee, 10, and fourth-grader Lillian Greene, 9, both said they try to recycle as much as they can outside of school.
Greene said she thinks recycling is important because not doing so contributes to the landfills and affects wildlife in the oceans and on land. Huckabee said he thinks recycling is important because it helps keep the school clean for students to learn and play and prepare for their jobs when they grow up.
Fort Hood is part of a regional partnership called the CenTex Sustainable Communities Partnership, which includes Fort Hood itself and the surrounding communities. This year, they kickstarted a program called Youth Environmental Ambassadors (YEA), which “focuses on promoting litter prevention, recycling, beautification and conservation within the school’s footprint so that if they don’t have the opportunity to go outside, they can still make a difference here,” Luciano said.
The program offers the opportunity for students to participate in a series of different environmental initiatives throughout the school year, such as a water-way cleanup in the fall, a Texas Recycles poster competition, the Recycle Bowl competition itself that started on America Recycles Day on November 15 and ran for a month and an energy conservation initiative that is running until April. Challenges for the Spring include a school beautification challenge that is running from now until the end of April and the Don’t Mess With Texas Trash-Off.
“I’m very passionate as an outreach coordinator and it’s great to have this opportunity to reach out to youth and motivate and inspire them to do their part,” Luciano said. “And it’s also inspiring to me to see students so young having such a high level of care for their school, their community, their neighborhood and wanting to make a positive change, so to see that is amazing.”