KCCB holds annual Spring Eco Fling

By BRITTANY FHOLER 
Cove Leader-Press 

Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful hosted the fourth annual Spring Eco Fling outside at City Park, in front of Fester’s House on Saturday. 
The event focused on teaching sustainability through different crafts and activities and featured different community organizations, such as the Copperas Cove Historical Society and the Cove Life Church youth group, as well as the Copperas Cove High School Art Club students who manned the face painting table. 
KCCB brought back the Eco Fling after a two-year hiatus back in 2020, and this year, the event was held outside in City Park, next to Fester’s Stage. 
The crafts included recycled wind chime kits, made using empty cans, CDs and string; folded paper planters made using newspaper; and broken crayons melted and molded into different shapes. 
“Our mission of course is to reduce, recycle, reuse, and by showing crafts that you can use recycled items, we’re hoping to spur our citizens at rethinking what trash might be,” said KCCB Commissioner Linda LaPierre. 

The event featured a special performance by Kaden Moore, 11, who is a fifth grader at T. Ringgold Academy of Arts and was the third-place winner of the Xpreesha Outreach 6th annual Youth Entertainment Showcase. 

The event culminated in the Five Hills Scholarship Pageant Program’s Go Red for Women Recycled Fashion Show, featuring several titleholders modeling their recycled creations. 
Baby Mister Five Hills Orion Douglas wore an outfit made from wrapping paper. Tiny Mister Five Hills Aaron Correia wore an outfit made from recycled Target shopping bags. 
Little Miss Five Hills Braelyn Liles wore a gown titled “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee!”, made using recycled coffee bags, tape, and glue. Her outfit took approximately 12 hours to put to together and used 193 coffee bags. 
Junior Mister Five Hills Nathan Garner titled his outfit “The Noise Maker”. Made from chip bags, his outfit took around four hours to piece together. 
Junior Five Hills Ambassador Maddox Tobias showed off a western themed look, with an outfit of chaps and a vest made from red paper treat bags. His outfit took approximately 10 hours to create. 
Ambassador Dawn Hale wore a gown made from the red ribbons that are tied in bows and left at the grave sites at the Central Texas Veterans Cemetery during the wreath laying. Hale collected the ribbons, which would have been thrown away otherwise. She spent approximately 40 hours collecting the ribbons, washing, ironing and cutting and sewing them for her outfit. 
She said that the color of the bows, red, represents those affected with heart defects, and the red bows also made her think of the how the veterans gave all to their country with their hearts. 
Teen Miss Five Hills Angelica Torres finished up the fashion show with her gown made from red plastic tablecloths from different events around the community as well as the Heart Walk held in Waco last November. The dress was made using double-sided tape, duct table and table covers and took approximately 30 hours to complete. 
This was Torres’ second year to host the fashion show at the Eco Fling and raising awareness for her platform of heart disease and the American Heart Association. 
Torres suffers from two heart disorders- SVT (Supraventricular tachycardia) and LVHT (left ventricular hyper-trabeculation/non-compaction). SVT is where there is an abnormally fast heart rhythm arising from improper electrical activity in the upper part of the heart.
“It’s really good to bring up to the community to know your heart and know how to take care of your body because you don’t know your heart sometimes and it doesn’t really occur that you have a heart problem until it’s fatal. And knowing your body now can get it done sooner,” Torres said. 
Torres said that the dress she made didn’t take too long to finish. 
“You can really find the beauty in anything because this is just trash that we made it to a pretty outfit,” Torres said. 
Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful’s next event will be the Don’t Mess with Texas Trash Off on Saturday, April 2nd. 
KCCB is also accepting applications for its two scholarships, with the deadline being April 8, 2022 at 4 p.m. Eligible applicants include Copperas Cove area high school seniors who have volunteered at two KCCB events. For more information, visit https://www.copperascovetx.gov/kccb/