Wallingford is decorating for the Holidays!
Members of the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce joined local “recycling maven” Barb Burrill to hang Holiday Ornaments made of recycled materials along NE 45th this past weekend. Sponsored in part by the Think Green Recycling Challenge, the decorations were made by children at several Wallingford elementary schools:
- St. Benedict’s – made in December 2012: duct tape garlands
- APP at Lincoln – made in December 2012: milk carton gingerbread houses, juice pouch stars, juice pouch star garland
- McDonald Int’l School – made at a crafting party at Mosaic Coffeehouse November 2013. Juice pouch stars of all sizes
- John Stanford Int’l School – made in December 2012, MLK Day 2013, at Mosaic crafting party November 2013: juice pouch stars and other ornaments of all sizes. The juice pouches were collected from JSIS school lunch recycling line, cleaned, and stapled into a variety of ornament shapes. Outdated CDs were spray painted red and white accents painted by hand. Decorations on the tree in front of Fainting Goat was made from discarded cups and spoons from the store.
These ornaments were made by the kids as a way to reuse materials that would otherwise end up in the garbage.
Barb Burrill volunteers at JSIS and Hamilton Int’l Middle School supporting their Green Team and Washington Green Schools efforts. JSIS has for years used juice pouches to make wallets, homework folders, lunch bags, tote bags, and holiday ornaments. Barb is also coordinating Wallingford’s entries in the Think Green Recycling Challenge, which encourages residents serviced by Waste Management to reduce what waste goes into landfill-bound garbage. The Recycling Challenge is sponsored by Wallingford Community Council. See current neighborhood standings in the Challenge.
I’m wondering why Wallingford doesn’t have the beautiful white winter lights on our tree lined street (45th). All of the great neighborhoods around Seattle seem to have them and they are so lovely. My old neighborhood put them up as a collaborative effort between the Elks Lodge and the local chapter of a lodge.
The main reason is that it requires someone to organize and pay for the lights along 45th. The Wallingford Chamber tried to organize lights a few years ago, but there were complications with both the capacity of some of the older buildings to handle the electricity required as well as low participation on the part of businesses. That said, it is definitely something we’d like to see happen in future! Any creative ideas to make this happen would be appreciated! Getting other organizations involved in the effort would be a big help.