Sarah Allen ’12, a sixth form student, contributed greatly to The Hill’s sustainability efforts, thanks to her “Green – The Way to Go: A Campus-Wide Eco-Responsible End-of-Year Collection” project last spring. The collected and donated items, which ranged from clothes and sneakers to bedding and furniture, eliminated over a ton of waste and had a positive impact on Pottstown and its surrounding communities.
As her Girl Scout Gold Award Project of 2011, Sarah created and carried out the mass collection of students’ unwanted items as they moved out of Hill dormitories for the summer. Growing up at various boarding schools, Sarah has seen different versions of collections over the years, and thought that “it just seemed like there was so much more that could be collected rather than left in the hallways to then be thrown away.”
Sarah had the well-being of the environment and overall community in mind as she carried out the collection. As a result, The Hill donated 357 items of bedding and 1,122 pounds of clothing to Liberty Thrift Store and 21 pieces of furniture and 35 appliances to the Salvation Army, on top of donating school supplies and 150 uniform pieces to the Pottstown School District and the Cluster Outreach Center of Pottstown, respectively.
Planning, marketing and advertising, collecting, sorting, and transporting: Sarah did it all, with the help of student and parent volunteers. She was initially a little intimidated by taking on a project of this size, she says, “especially because I’ve seen how much has ended up in the dumpsters and I was interested and a little frightened to see how much would end up in the [collection] boxes.” Sarah also admits she was a little overwhelmed after spending six hours hauling collection boxes out of the dorms into Sweeney Gymnasium and seeing how much was there to be sorted, but, she says, “It was nice because I could really see how much The Hill was doing for the community.”
Sarah, who has now created a
pamphlet guide on conducting school collections of this type, doesn’t take full credit for her efforts. “Mrs. Marie Fechik-Kirk (Hill's director of sustainability) was definitely helpful in organizing everything. I could not have done it without the Green Team and all the student leaders, because they helped train the other volunteers.”
The End-of-Year Collection is now passed into the hands of The Hill and the Green Team. Sarah’s collection guide will make it easy for future collections to be carried out. “I probably won’t lead it this year but I definitely will help out,” Sarah notes.
Looking back at the collection’s success, Sarah is proud and grateful for everyone’s help. Thank you, Sarah, and The Hill Community, for helping promote and further campus sustainability and off-campus community involvement.