Boardman middle school starts new club

Staff report

BOARDMAN

Glenwood Middle School started a new club for students to help make the Earth a better place.

In its first year, the Helping Our Planet Earth, or HOPE, Club focused on projects aimed at reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills.

The club earned money with that waste for the school and future HOPE projects. They participated in the Green Team’s Cash for Cans contest and collected 393 pounds of cans, earning the school $212.

Another project HOPE launched was the collecting of specific waste items that earned the school points through a waste-collection site called Terra Cycle. Some of the items collected include Capri Sun pouches, foil bar wrappers, empty tape rolls and Little Bites wrappers.

Each single item is worth a point, and these points are used to earn money for the school or redeemed for actions or products from Terra Cycle. The school earned nearly 11,000 points to date, and HOPE club members voted to use these points to preserve land through the National Wildlife Federation totaling more than 4 acres. They also collected more than 5,000 plastic bottles to recycle.

Fifth-grader and club member Jenna Madick was recognized for her efforts in a contest sponsored by the Green Team. Jenna was applauded at the Mahoning County courthouse at the county commissioners’ meeting for being the fifth-grade winner of the Green Team’s place-mat contest.

The contest had students create a design emphasizing reduce, reuse, recycle. Jenna won $25 from Dominion. Her design will appear in local participating restaurants on place mats. Another member, eighth-grader Sophia McGee, started a community garden at the Southern Park Stables in the township.