My mom was in the paper today for being a bag-hoarder.
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The goal of the program, dubbed Bags for Bears by the Athens-Clarke Recycling Division, was to collect about 450,000 bags by Dec. 31, said Suki Janssen, Athens Clarke-County’s waste reduction specialist. But students exceeded that goal by about 100,000 bags, providing enough decking to not only build play structures for the bears, but for the zoo’s bobcats and otters, too.
While the official totals aren’t in, Janssen said, Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School has unofficially taken the first-place prize for collecting the most bags.
“Nothing’s official yet,” Janssen said. “But they really were rock ‘n’ rolling with it over there.”
On Thursday, a 7-foot mound of bags crowded the school’s foyer until recycling division workers could haul away the stock, which represents about a fifth of the estimated 250,000 bags the school has collected over the past few months.
Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary students and teachers collected at least 100,000 more bags than any other school when the last official total was released at the beginning of December. But collections exploded over Christmas, said fourth-grade teacher and bag-hoarder Susan Sanders.
“We had a great time, and we really had great support from the community and all of our families,” Sanders said. “I had my daughter and all of my extended family saving up bags. Everyone was saving them for us, and we went after them. I climbed in Dumpsters; I dug through big boxes in the backs of stores getting bags.”
In the end, Sanders’ class collected more than 130,000 bags. The only class that even came close was Kay Isley’s first-grade class at Oglethorpe Avenue with a 100,000-bag total.
Sanders and Isley have been friends since childhood, but the battle over bags got ugly at times.
“A few months in, my husband looked at me and said, ‘You know these bags aren’t worth y’all’s friendship,’ ” Sanders joked.
The friendly competition seemed to do the students good, Isley said. Isley and Sanders used the bags for lessons in multiplication and counting, and the challenge taught the students about recycling, waste and working together, Isley said.
“I think everyone will certainly think twice about throwing away bags in the future,” she added.
Isley and Sanders’ classes will be treated to a picnic at Memorial Park and a special tour of Bear Hollow Wildlife Trail this spring to see the bears and other animals use their new playscapes.
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Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 011108. Written by Merritt Melancon.
