As my oldest child boarded the bus on her first day of kindergarten, I was very emotional and full of questions. Would she make friends? Would she like her teacher? How would I fit into this new chapter of her life?   As a stay-at-home mom of three (including a very active 1-year-old), I knew I wouldn’t be able to volunteer during school hours or help with events on weeknights. Luckily, the PTO had effective strategies for reaching out to new parents that helped me get involved and feel connected to the school.   When school started, words like Box Tops for Education, winter fair, and TerraCycle were all new to my vocabulary. A cheat sheet supplied by the PTO explained what these fundraisers were and how they worked. Soon I was clipping box tops, saving drink pouches, and looking forward to the family activities offered at the school.   The PTO offered a wide variety of volunteer opportunities, including several jobs that could be done from home. I volunteered to help with the publishing center, which produces bound copies of student-written books. A few weeks after I signed up, handwritten books were sent home in my daughter’s backpack along with clear directions, samples, and paper for this task. Each book took approximately 10 minutes to type and print out. I could easily type up books during naptime or other lulls in our household.   It was fun to prepare the books, and because I was never given more than five books at a time, I never felt overwhelmed by the task. Throughout the year, I typed up a total of 25 books. I appreciated the fact that the PTO had a meaningful way for me to participate despite my limited availability.   I also liked that the PTO used email as its main form of communication, cutting down on the paperwork that came home from school. It was clear to me as a parent that the PTO used great discretion in sending out these emails, minimizing the number of messages and keeping them brief. Because I knew emails from the PTO contained vital information about things happening at school, I actually read them when they arrived in my inbox!   Email also gave me a comfortable way to interact with people I hadn’t yet met. We had just moved to a new town, and it was daunting to meet so many new people; email gave me anonymity to ponder the choices and decide where to help without having to respond to each request in person.   After any event or fundraiser, our PTO thanked volunteers and reported on the success of the event. As a newbie, I had wondered if anyone even noticed that I worked the spin art booth for two hours at the fall festival. Getting an email the next day helped me feel even better about how I helped the PTO. And when they explained the specific ways a fundraiser benefited the school, such as providing funding for family fun nights and teacher appreciation dinners, I could see how my involvement made a difference.   This year, as my daughter gets on the bus for 1st grade, I’ll be looking forward to volunteering for more programs. In addition to helping with the publishing center, I’m thinking about helping out with the winter fair and teacher appreciation dinners. And I know that the PTO will help me stay connected with the school, whatever role I take in the group. Theresa Rosenberg is a PTO volunteer at Cornwall Elementary in Lebanon, Pa.

Jenny Bruno’s fifth-graders at Oak Grove Primary School were challenged to reduce their carbon footprint after studying the human impact on the environment. Students wore crazy hair and hats to help raise nearly $500 to begin an upcycling or recycling program at Oak Grove Primary. Using the Web-based Terracycle program, which turns trash into other products, students set up an upcycling center in the school’s cafeteria and in hallways to help with the collection of items. Terracycle upcycles items such as lunch kits, chip bags, drink pouches and cereal bags. “Not only does this program help reduce our carbon footprint, the program in turn for the goods sends funds to the school,” Bruno said. The funds will be used to purchase new library books. “The students are very excited about reducing their carbon footprint and keeping these items out of our local landfills,” Bruno said. After a month of collection, the students collected 573 lunch kits, 1,216 chip bags, 1,835 drink pouches and eight cereal bags.

Terracycle's CEO Tom Szaky is featured as a guest expert for a new CNBC show called "Crowd Rules". Tom will visit 3 small businesses during the show and be part of a celebrity panel to determine the winner. Please tune in or share with your contacts. Below please find links to an advert and a profile of Tom on CNBC.com. Meet Crowd Rules Expert Tom Szaky  

The G. Ray Bodley High School Environmental Club is about to undertake yet another world saving task, upcycling. Upcyling was an idea that was brought to the club by sophomore Cayla Weaver. The concept is an offshoot of the old saying, "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

 

The club will work with the company Terracycle to take Bodley's trash such as candy wrappers, juice boxes, and chip bags and make it into something useable like bags, benches, notebooks, and pencil cases. The best part of this arrangement, besides the obvious beneficial impacts to the environment, is that a portion of the profits earned from the resulting goods goes to a non-profit charity or school of the organizers choice.

The donations will be collected by the club and packaged and shipped back to the company to be upcycled into new goods. The products are divided into "brigades" based on their type. The brigades range from the obvious chip bags to the unexpected designer handbag brigade. All of the products created by the upcycled goods can be purchased on the TerraCycle website where customers can literally purchase a notebook made out of recycled chip bags for only 8.99 to take math notes in. And who knows, maybe that good karma will come in handy when working on homework and quizzes; it certainly can't hurt.

Whitemarsh Elementary Students Teach Older Kids About Upcycling

This banner was made possible with almost $1,500 raised from recycling juice pouches and chip bags through a company called TerraCycle. Scocchi said the rest of the money will go toward more projects, like the tree planting, as well as rewards like pizza parties throughout the year for students.

I had the pleasure of speaking with each of the Kindergarten through 6^th grade classes throughout the day.  They were amazing!  For only starting to recycle this year, they knew a tremendous amount about the environment.  We talked about why we recycle, what we can recycle and of course I showed them my TerraCycle bags.  Kids (and adults)  just love these!  They were all so fascinated by the fact that trash could be turned into such cool tote bags, lunch bags and more.

At J.M. Grasse Elementary School last week, however, physical education teacher Audrey Coll and classroom assistant James Conwell strutted down the impromptu gymnasium catwalk, decked out in recycled materials like Capri Sun juice packs, plastic caps and newspaper, to the delight of giggling students.

In recognition of April being "Earth Month," recycling pioneer TerraCycle is celebrating reaching $7 million donated to schools and charities across the country and around the world with help from groups in Rhode Island.