Cove schools win top honors in Fort Hood Recycle Bowl
Special to Leader-Press
Hettie Halstead Elementary Student Council members surprised everyone this year—even themselves. The small but hardworking group started a school-wide recycling program and decided to track its number of pounds of recycling and turn it in for Fort Hood’s Recycle Bowl competition.
Like a dark horse coming up from behind in a race, no one ever expected the small school to collect nearly 4,000 pounds of recycled materials and capture first place. Clements/Parsons Elementary captured third place, holding strong in the top three for the third consecutive year.
The annual Recycle Bowl competition is sponsored by Fort Hood Recycle and the CenTex Sustainable Communities Partnership. Its goal is to help establish recycling programs within the schools, teach both children and adults how to recycle and increase their efforts and provide environmental educational opportunities.
Halstead has 308 students. The student council collected a total of 3,909 pounds, averaging 12.4 pounds per student.
Student Council members, including Hailey Palmer, spent more than 400 hours during the school year on the recycling project.
“We try to get people and the whole school to throw away everything that is recyclable into the recycling bin so that we can recycle it and make the world a better place,” Palmer said. “Our school is one of the smallest schools in the district. It’s crazy that we can recycle so much.”
For the third year in a row, Clements/Parsons Elementary captured one of the top three places in the Fort Hood Recycle Bowl, winning third place.
One of CCISD’s largest elementary schools with a student population of more than 800, both the student council and the Kids Care Club join forces to cover the entire building to collect all of the recycling every other week.
Student Council President Emily Kimball said it was amazing to have the entire school recycling.
“The community gives so much to us that, by volunteering, we are giving back to the community in our own ways,” the fifth grader said. “Even the tiniest, small piece of recyclable material can help the environment.
The two organizations together volunteered more than 600 hours on the project collecting 3,857 pounds of recyclables.
Each school received a trophy made out of recycled glass. As the grand champion, Halstead received a rotating plaque with its school highlighted and $200 which the council donated back to the school for next year’s group to attend the annual student council workshop to learn leadership skills.