Club spruces up recycling center

The Sisters Recycling Center on Ash Street has become an eyesore, with recyclables strewn about or piled up outside packed containers.

But last week it looked a whole lot better - for a little while - after members of the Sisters Middle School Roots & Shoots Club spent an afternoon cleaning it up.

According to parent advisor Sue Thornton, the cleanup operation is part of a four-pronged service effort that fulfills the club's mission to serve community, humanity, the environment and wildlife.

The maintenance of the recycling center grounds is the club's community project. To aid humanity, club members will hold a food drive for the Kiwanis Food Bank. To help the environment, they will be selling fabric bags to replace plastic and paper grocery sacks. To assist wildlife, they will offer gifts to Chimps, Inc., a Bend-based facility that rescues chimpanzees.

The club is a youth project of the Jane Goodall Institute. It was founded by the anthropologist to "engage and inspire youth of all ages through service-learning projects ... based on the principle that knowledge leads to compassion, which inspires action."

The club operates under the leadership of middle school science teacher Carol Packard and meets at 3 p.m. at Sisters Middle School. Youth in fifth through 12th grade are welcome.

Twelve-year-old Sami Malone said, "I joined Roots & Shoots because in sixth grade I was in Ms. Packard's class, and we learned about Jane Goodall and Chimps, Inc. It's to help the world be a better place."

Devon Holler said he signed up "So I could do something good for the environment. And I thought it would be fun to go out and clean up the town."

Randi Anderson saw a poster for the club, and "It said everything I wanted to do."

She said, "I've always felt a passion for animals and the environment."

The club will have a float in the Sisters Christmas Parade next Saturday, which will highlight the club's four areas of activism.

For more information on Roots & Shoots, visit http://www.rootsandshoots.org; for more information on Chimps, Inc. visit http://www.chimps-inc.org.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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