By Heather Clower
The Parsons Advocate
A few months ago, the Recycling Coalition of West Virginia, Incorporative hosted a youth contest to spread awareness about the importance of recycling. There were five age groups with categories specific to their level. For the younger age groups, each participant was provided a coloring sheet with three different disposal receptacles pictured, including compost, recycle, or trash bin. On a separate sheet were squares of recyclable items that the child had to color and cut out to paste near their appropriate receptacle. The Recycling Coalition had the daunting task of judging each entry and choosing a winner of each category
Mark Holstine, Executive Director of the Solid Waste Management Board located in Charleston, W.Va. reported to the Mountain Laurel Learning Cooperative to make the presentation to the winners, who were unaware of their recent accomplishment. As the children gathered together, Casey King, Director of Mountain Laurel, introduced Holstine to the group. He reminded the youth of their recent participation in the coloring activity contest, which he announced, “There was over 1,000 entries into the contest state wide, and two of you won.” “That’s hard to do,” exclaimed Holstine.
The categories were broken into kindergarten and first graders followed by second and third graders. The Mountain Laurel Learning Cooperative is composed of home school children who choose to attend this learning center for educational activities. While they do not follow the traditional grade system, they employ a primary group of children age’s three to six and a lower elementary group for children ages six through nine.
With much anticipation, Holstine had the pleasure of announcing the winners. The winner of the kindergarten and first grade division came went to a younger child in the lower elementary group, Ellis Sherald, son of Sarah Hunt and Mathew Sherald. The winner of the second and third grade age division went to an older youth of the lower elementary group, Camden Phillips, son of Zach and Jarolyn Phillips. Both Sherald and Phillips won a framed certificate for their honor with a ghosted copy of their entry in the background of the award. In addition to the certificate, they each received a $25 Visa gift card.
The facilitators of the winning students were also awarded a prize of a $75 Visa gift card to use towards educational materials. With both Sherald and Phillips being in the lower elementary group, their educator Jody Logar received a total of $150 in gift cards to use towards materials.
The goals of the Recycling Coalition Youth Contests are for children to learn about the importance of recycling while using their creativity. In addition to the coloring contest, the fourth through sixth grade, seventh and eighth grade, and nine through twelfth grade categories encouraged the youth to create a painting, drawing, poem, song, video, essay, sculpture, or some other artistic media based on a recycling theme. It is in the hopes of the Coalition that while offering fun contests not only promotes creativity and abstract thinking, it gives youth a chance to learn more about the importance of recycling and other life lessons that can stem from the activity. Congratulations to Sherald and Phillips as well as Logar on your recent achievements.
