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For Immediate Release 06/10/08

Territorial Elementary Tapped as First Lane County School to Receive Oregon Green School Recognition

Contacts: Sarah Grimm, Lane County waste reduction specialist and Rural Green School coordinator, 682-4339; Territorial Elementary Teacher Barbara Coolman, 998-8371; Pleasant Hill Middle School Principal Mary Ritter, 736-0471

By increasing efforts to educate students, families and communities about recycling and waste prevention, two schools in Lane County moved up a level in the Oregon Green Schools certification program.

Territorial Elementary is the first school in Lane County to reach the highest level of certification. Premier level is achieved by adding programs that educate the community to existing school programs.

On Thursday, June 12 Territorial Elementary School will get a visit from County Commissioner Bill Fleenor. After an 8:45 a.m. tour of the compost garden, Commissioner Fleenor will present the school with the Premier Level Oregon Green School certificate and flag.

Territorial’s long-standing successful recycling program gives third and fourth graders interactive learning experiences when they collect and chart data related to not only recycling, but the food scraps from the cafeteria that is composted in the school garden as well. Students get to experience the full cycle of sustainable resource use when they snack on tasty snow peas and salads each spring.

After several years of providing waste-free lunch kits – a durable set with lunch sack, sandwich drink and snack tubs for families that pledge to buy in bulk and avoid excess packaging – students of Territorial Elementary assisted another school, Laurel Elementary, in beginning its own waste free lunch program. The students also wrote letters and brought former Governor John Kitzhaber and his wife a waste-free lunch kit when they visited the capitol. And this spring, Territorial hosted an electronics collection for its community. Students sent postcards to Territorial alumnae and asked them to bring their old cell phones to the school and then they held an e-waste round up with NextStep Recycling, a local nonprofit agency.

Pleasant Hill Middle School also moved up this spring. The school received Merit level certification when because it helped neighboring Trent Elementary set up a lunchroom recycling program like its own.

Fourteen schools in Lane County currently hold "Oregon Green School" certification, but Territorial is the first to reach the elevated status of "Premier" and Pleasant hill joins Churchill High School in boasting "Merit" level certification.

The Oregon Green Schools Association offers this certification program to provide technical assistance, awards and rewards to schools who conserve resources. Grants, one-on-one assistance, and an annual conference for students and teachers are some of the ways schools are served by certification.

For more information contact www.OregonGreenSchools.org

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Amber Fossen
Public Information Officer
Lane County Government
125 E. Eighth Ave.
Eugene, Oregon 97401
(541) 682.3718
(541) 359.9143 (cell)

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