At the last art club meeting, the members realized they need to do more service. Ms. Ros and Mrs. Sellers, along with Senior Jillian Verzwyvelt, came up with the idea to paint recycling bins. Junior Ella Sheets also played a role in coming up with this creative and fun idea. In an interview, Sheets said, “Our school makes lots of trash, much of which could be recycled. We use lots of paper, and many people drink out of plastic water bottles from school lunch. Recycling these things instead of throwing them away would help reduce the amount of trash we make and increase recycling awareness,” and I think most of us can agree with that. The art club found a great service opportunity.

This idea can help the school in many ways, but the most important thing is Ascension will have less waste. Recycling has always been a big issue and so doing this will help our school community learn to not only recycle at school, but maybe other places as well. Verzwyvelt helped come up with the original idea of painting recycling bins since she wanted to do a service project that could stick with the students. Verzwyvelt came up with this idea saying, “An avid Pinterest fanatic in my free time, that is where I first got the idea!” Painting the cans can catch the eye of students, so it is an idea worth trying. I asked her how this could help with the community in the future and she said, “I plan on converting all of ARK’s bottle cap collection bins into the new and improved recycling bins to help save costs as well as emphasize the practicality and ease of reusing old materials. For now, the program is aimed solely at our school, but who knows what could happen in the future!” Ms. Ros and Mrs. Sellers said they were going to start this project Thursday, September 28, 2017.

The Art Club is helping our school make a difference through recycling. When I asked Sheets if this will bring more service to the club, she answered, “I think it is a great service project for our club and I hope to do more projects like it.” I hope our school could also do more service projects like this, because it’s fun and effective. Recycling bins are great for our school, but if it all works out like Verzwyvelt wants it to, it’ll be for the community. You can think of it as recycling with a fun, creative twist.