Friday's Internet Edition, July 25, 2008.
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Cline had good reason to be offended by this.
“Recycling aluminum cans is actually better than making them out of raw materials,” Cline pointed out. “Recycling a can saves enough energy to run a television or, for that matter, a computer for three hours. Meanwhile, aluminum cans in a garbage dump will stay there for over 500 years.”
The ecology-minded teacher decided to do something about it. He wanted to see Brown have a more positive effect on the environment and the community, at least as far as used aluminum cans went. Therefore, he presented an idea to his eighth-grade Bruin (Brown School’s term for homeroom) class.
“I suggested my Bruin class find a way to collect these cans so that they could be recycled,” Cline recalled. “The proceeds we would receive from the recycling company could be put toward a good cause in the community.”
The students in his class were very receptive to the idea. Participating in the can collecting were Felicia Braswell, Tamara Cooper, Brittany Cooper, Meghan Ferdinand, Kendra Gunter, Zachary Hofmann, Kameron Hoyle, Alexandra Imbler, Betsy Lovette, Keith Mishoe, Zachery Morgan and Dustin Sipes.
The classmates set up recycling bins and encouraged their fellow students to toss their discarded cans in them instead, of the trash receptacles. In fact, many of them even brought aluminum cans from home and collected others from friends of theirs outside of the school. Cline e-mailed the other teachers and staff members at the school to get their participation in the project.
“We began collecting them from everywhere,” he said. “We got to where we collected them from the cafeteria. Those people really helped us out.”
Many of the students put quite a bit of time into this project. Much of that was spent crushing the cans. In all, over 9,000 cans were collected, crushed and sold to a recycle center at 42 cents per pound. The proceeds amounted to $138.50.
After some deliberation, the class decided to donate the money they made from selling the crushed cans to Fair Grove Family Resource Center. Terry Nelson, executive director of the center, dropped by Cline’s room at the school on Wednesday to pick up the check.
“We go to a place called Second Harvest Food Bank in Winston-Salem, where we can buy food for 18 cents per pound,” a grateful Nelson told the students. “This is a huge amount of dollars, and I appreciate what each and every one of you has done.”
A quick calculation by Cline revealed that the amount of the check was enough to provide 769 pounds of food to the center.
“Fair Grove Family Resource Center feeds people in eastern Davidson County and all through the city of Thomasville,” Nelson explained. “We feed about 400 people every month, which is the equivalent of about 7,000 pounds of food every month. This check will go a long way to helping us feed a lot of hungry people in Thomasville.”
It also relieved Cline of at least one of his problems.
“I look at this as a win-win situation,” he said. “I can’t stand for those things to go into the trash.”
Staff writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500 ext. 230 or reid@tvilletimes.com.