By Megan Kelley
Staff Writer
LAKE ORION — During their Sept. 28 regular meeting, the Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education received a grant award presentation from Recyclebank to Lake Orion High School’s own Science National Honor Society and GoGreen Club. The school received $3,600 to put toward updating the recycle program.
In implementing the district’s new strategic plan, they have been in close contact with a number of local partnerships including Orion Township and Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett. Through that connection, LOCS became aware of a grant opportunity from Recyclebank, which students applied for and recently received.
Presenting the check was Elise Nalu, account manager for Recyclebank in Orion Township.
Science teacher at LOHS Steve Tighe spoke about the program, highlighting several graduated students who worked on applying for the grant last year.
“The program is to build recycling outside of the building and primarily with the sporting events and activities. We know how busy building and ground staff and custodial staff are but we know that after school and after sporting events there’s a lot of recycling that could take place,” Tighe said. “The students put together their plan and we had some recycling going on last year after some of the football games that students were doing. But we realized we needed additional equipment and that’s where Recyclebank came in to play where we saw this opportunity for a great chance to work toward building this as a long term program here with our sporting events.”
Tighe also brought one of his Science National Honor Society student Avery Case to speak about the grant.
“This is something I have a very strong passion about and I am grateful to start to see it at a bigger scale in our community,” Case said.
Case, who plans on studying environmental science in college, is working with Tighe to build the program by gaining student volunteers to work with the new equipment. She currently sits on the Orion Township Environmental Resource Committee as the Student/High School member.
Recyclebank is an incentive program where residents are eligible to receive points for participating. With the points, residents can earn coupons for local businesses or to donate those points to schools, Nalu said. They have had a partnership with Orion Township since 2020.
Recyclebank also fundraiser with Lake Orion High School earlier this year.