Walmart gives $1,000 prize to village class
Special to the Gazette
Friday, November 13, 2009
A Village Elementary third-grade class took an Earth Day Challenge seriously last spring and collected more than 5,200 plastic bags. The students’ actions brought a $1,000 cash prize to the school this fall that will be used to start a school-wide recycling program.
David Goldsmith, representing the Emporia Walmart store, presented the now fourth-grade students with a $1,000 check last week, according to teacher Traci Meyer.
Last April, Mrs. Meyer’s third-grade class participated in and won the Emporia Walmart Earth Day Challenge. Students collected plastic shopping bags from family, neighbors and friends. They took the bags to school, counted them out in groups of 25 and bagged them. Mrs. Meyer made many trips to the Walmart service desk to deliver the bags – more than 5, 200 all together.
“The purpose of the contest was to reduce the amount of plastic shopping bags that are going into the landfills,” Meyer said. “To reuse this plastic reduces the amount of oil needed to produce more, as well as energy savings in producing less. It takes a plastic bag 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill.”