Author’s note: This is the second in a series.
Communication is key for a cohesive crew – at the Keep Alliance Beautiful Recycling Center, or anywhere else a group of people strives for a common goal.
Frigid, snowy weather and whatever communicable illness is most prevalent have impacted who has been able to make it to work lately. Last Thursday brought one person in for a full day because travel would have been too treacherous for her other job. Drifting in the country kept another lady home and delayed a co-worker until mid-afternoon. Par for the course so far in 2024.
On the other hand, our paid employees have been joined in recent weeks by two dedicated volunteers. Claudia Olafson aims to spend one day a week buzzing through stacks of documents at the shredder. Keith Cameron began by pulling apart boxes of thick church missals to accommodate paper processing equipment down the line. As I backed in, filled to the brim after the Hemingford run last week, Keith was trying his hand at sorting, in particular, Dave’s Pharmacy bags gathered that afternoon. Claudia had texted her regrets, also kept away by the weather. I welcome any future time they wish to spend with us.
My 2023 column “Time To Volunteer”, July, featured Katelyn Heisler, a junior at Alliance High School, who was “parlaying the experience into meeting a requirement for membership in the National Honor Society.” While Katelyn represented one of the longer term volunteer stints at KAB by local youth, I thought about how we hope to approach volunteering at the recycling center in the coming months – recruiting everyone from individuals to groups to make a foray into the local process, and come back, of course, as often as they want.
Yet, not everyone desires to comb through what a significant percentage of the population still views as trash. Other columns this past year told of events and programs where KAB and the public intersected.
In March, “Take A Page From Hemingford Library’s Book”, I interviewed Director Colleen Gardner: “Colleen mentioned a summer reading program on where trash goes and how it’s never gone, noting archaeological digs that still uncover trash from the Romans, for example, compared to the lack of trash at a Native American site. Even ‘a book is compact and doesn’t break down,’ she said.” The youth offering took place a few months later. KAB education coordinator at the time, Kari Bargen, helped lead daily sessions.
Later that month, “Untrashed: Create Recycled Art”, I promoted an upcoming art show. It was a Keep Alliance Beautiful event sponsored by Box Butte General Hospital and hosted by the Knight Museum. The event was an opportunity to create art out of recycled goods – anything that is recycled, upcycled, reused or would have otherwise been thrown away. Artists were invited to select supplies from the recycling center. More than 100 entries raised $1,234 for our Keep America Beautiful affiliate. Importantly, in the time since the public bidded and brought home the pieces, “People have been interested because they’ve seen what it was and are interested in participating,” KAB Executive Director Kathy Worley commented recently. She expects a bigger show next time and hopes to offer the next incarnation of “Untrashed” in 2024.