ONU Recycles Needs Your Vote!

ONU Recycles is one of five national finalists in the Great American Cleanup competition. The winner receives $5,800 with another $5,800 going to the local Keep America Beautiful affiliate. You can vote online for the ONU representatives. 

ONU Recycles took on the project of not only cleaning up Ada's War Memorial Park after a high school track meet on April 27, 2010, but also placing recycling bins and dressing in t-shirts, bandanas and green face paint to offer some good-natured "green action" tips to the athletes and fans attending the meet.

With the encouragement of Ann Daugherty, program manager at the Hardin County Chapter of Keep America Beautiful, ONU Recycles entered their project in the Great American Cleanup competition. Five projects were chosen as national finalists. The public has until Oct. 14 to vote for their favorite. Other finalists include Iowa Western Women's Basketball, Oklahoma's CORE (Conserving Our Ranger Environment), Chi Theta of Community County of Baltimore County, Pa., and the FIT PRSSA chapter at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City.

Kyle Cottos, "president of ONU Recycles, is encouraging the ONU campus community to vote. "We represent a small school in the middle of nowhere and we've made it into the final five of a national competition. To me that is a pretty big accomplishment and if we do win, it would really help make recycling on this campus easier, along with raising awareness for our recycling program and even the University itself."

If ONU Recycles wins the vote, $5,800 will be awarded to the Hardin County Chapter of Keep America Beautiful, and ONU Recycles will decide how to spend the other $5,800. "Right now we're looking at the possibility of getting bins into each individual dorm room," Cottos says.

Whether ONU Recycles receives the funds or not, plans are already underway for more green projects. "Around winter break we'll be building a Christmas tree made out of two-liter bottles and in the spring we'll be constructing a cardboard maze sometime around Earth day," Cottos says.

To vote for ONU Recycles, go to: https://ob.promo.eprize.com/keepamerica/