August, 13th 2013

By  Jeff Gebeau

WALLINGFORD – Spanish Community of Wallingford Executive Director Maria Harlow called the organization’s new recycling push a “happy accident.”

SCOW planned to host a standard youth leadership conference in July as the culminating event to its annual Adelante! America Youth Leadership Program, but the kids “wanted something different,” Harlow explained.

SCOW students came up with the idea to stage a fashion show featuring clothes made from recyclable materials, she said.

The show, called “Junk Couture,” was held last month in place of the leadership conference.

The children created “beautiful, amazing” clothing from recyclables, said Harlow.

Gina Morganstein of the Wallingford Recyclers, a group of local volunteers who promote recycling and other green initiatives, saw the fashion show advertised and attended, since it highlighted the cause that is close to her heart.

After the event, Morganstein approached Harlow about the possibility of sponsoring other conservation programs, and the two agreed to arrange a series of recycling workshops.

“Our families are constantly looking for activities that parents can do together with their children,”
Harlow said, explaining the draw of the planned program beyond encouraging the practice of recycling.

Morganstein said the Wallingford Recyclers regularly “conduct recycling awareness events,” and make a “real community effort to educate our children and adults.”

The first SCOW event Morganstein will conduct is an arts and crafts workshop for mothers and their daughters between ages 5 to 15 on today. Participants will make art projects from recyclable or reusable materials, Morganstein said.

Featured construction materials will include paper towel and toilet paper rolls, as well as bottle caps, Morganstein said. Attendees are encouraged to “use their imagination” as to other recyclable or renewable materials they can bring to use in making their projects.

Morganstein said SCOW mothers and daughters will make flowers, decorations, wall hangings and other “pretty things” they can hang on walls, bulletin boards, and other locations.

The workshop will last approximately 90 minutes, she said.

Morganstein said the workshop said would afford her the chance to bring recycling “to the forefront” of community awareness and “make it fun.”

Harlow said Morganstein will conduct a separate educational recycling presentation “in a few weeks,” though the date has not yet been set. Other similar sessions will likely follow, she said.

The series of workshops will tentatively be titled “SCOW Goes Green,” said Harlow.

Morganstein said the seminars will inform people about recycling and give people an “educational background on the issue,” supplemented by statistical information. She said the presentations would provide a “jump-off for them to start to recycle,” at SCOW, she said.

“We are going to start recycling,” Harlow said.

Harlow said the workshops will “get the community in the mindset” of recycling and “set an example and motivate others” to practice conservation. The forums will also afford the chance to discuss recycling’s “importance to the planet,” she said.
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