Mary of Nazareth Catholic School

The Mary of Nazareth School community has recently made great strides towards greening our school. The HSA established a Go Green Committee, made up of parent volunteers and school staff, with the goal of becoming better stewards of our Earth. We started by recycling at our annual benefit auction in the Spring of 2008. Next, we adjusted our waste management systemto handle more commingled materials. By Fall 2008, blue bins were in place in the lunchroom. Parents and teachers help children identify what goes where. A representative from Montgomery County recently conducted a recycling presentation at all scheduled lunches. Soon after, even young students were reportedly checking up on teachers and parents to be sure things were going in the right places! We are now working with volunteers and teachers to increase recycling during school events, and we are collecting foil juice pouches for recycling through the Terracycle program. While the recycling initiatives were getting started, an effort was underway to create an improved school web site. This site has enabled us to eliminate our previous system of delivering news to parents on paper. Every week, parents would receive a packet of news and flyers. Starting this Fall 2009, instead of photocopying an average of 2500 sheets of paper weekly, the office staff post the weekly news on the web site. This includes forms parents use to register for activities, hot lunch, aftercare, and more. While parent volunteers have worked hard to help the school go green, several teachers have begun their own initiatives, including working towards becoming a certified Green School. Our preschool teacher, Mrs. Amy Ebner, routinely uses discarded CDs, yogurt cups, and other re-used materials in art projects. Our fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Robin Field, arranged for students to collect recycling from classrooms. Her initial goal was to recycle the many wipes containers utilized in the classroom, but this grew to collecting other commingled materials as well as paper. The middle ...