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Kids make holiday green
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Poland North Elementary fourth-grader Sophi Gawdyda shows off her ornament made out of old holiday cards. The Mahoning County Green Team helped students make a variety of recycled ornaments Tuesday.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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De De Smith of the parent-teacher organization lends some helping hands to Austin Tusinac as he finished his tree ornament.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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A variety of ornaments were made by students at North Elementary in Poland Tuesday.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
Fourth-grade students at Poland North Elementary worked with the Mahoning County Green Team to reuse holiday greeting cards as ornaments.
POLAND
Puzzle pieces, old holiday cards and cereal boxes were among the materials North Elementary students reused to create seasonal decorations.
First-graders Cassandra Aey, Abigail Hill, Maddie Anzevino and Kameron Slosser huddled around a cafeteria table Tuesday with painted cereal boxes that were cut to look like a light bulb, and pored over the foam stickers used to adorn their work.
“I don’t really know what I’ll make,” Hill said. Then, a stocking emblem caught her eye.
“I brought my stocking to my room so Santa can find it,” she said, adding a few stockings to her design.
Hill’s bulb will join those of her fellow first-graders and be strung throughout the school’s halls. Craft projects for children in kindergarten through fourth grade were led by Peg Flynn of the Mahoning County Green Team.
“This time of year, we make 25 percent more trash,” she told students.
In addition to decorations, Flynn recommended that people bring reusable bags with them when they shop, recycle as much packaging as possible, donate old clothes and toys rather than throwing them away and use paper plates instead of plastic foam plates at parties.
Making the ornaments can be done with materials easily found at home, Flynn said.
“With these types of homemade ornaments, parents really treasure them forever. I still have ornaments from my children, who are now in their 30s, and I can’t part with them,” she said.
Cassandra said she was going to hang her ornament up at home later.
“I like the glitter and sparkle,” she said.
Other recycling information, including how to recycle a Christmas tree after the holiday, is available online at www.mahoningcountyoh.gov/tabid/773/default.aspx