Texas Reports

Texas Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1998

I am a kindergarten teacher from Devine, Texas. Our seven kindergarten classes at Ciavarra Elementary in Devine decorated approx. 300 grocery sacks and delivered them to our local H.E.B. They used them to sack groceries on Earth Day, but only at the customer's request. I wish they would have been pushed them a little more. The manager said it costs them more to sack with paper sacks then plastic so they really did not push them.
Kitty S. Jones kittyj@flash.net

Based on information received from the Paper Bag Council of the American Forest and Paper Association:
800 bags
-- Pearson Elementary School
-- Mission, TX

Walnut Hill Elementary decorated 400 grocery bags for Albertsons Grocery store. The store displayed some of the bags and sent the rest out with customers. The students had a wonderful time decorating and enjoyed learning how to save our earth. This activity will become an anual one-Thanks!!!
Ms. Taylor
Walnut Hill Elementary
Dallas, Texas

Our school Woodland Hills Elementary decorated 450 grocery bags which were donated to us by Holiday Foods IGA here in Kingwood (outside of Houston). Two local newspapers reported on our project and included our pictures! It was a really great Earth Day project. Thank you!
Sharon Pierson (SFPierson@aol.com)
Woodland Hills Elementary
Kingwood, TX

We are a 3rd and 4th grade school. We decorated 500 bags donated by our local HEB store.
Staci Korkowski (jskork@aol.com)
Northside Elementary
Cleveland, Texas

Wedgewood Wranglers decorated over 500 paper bags to be distributed at Albertson's, in Friendswood. It was a great break from preparing for the TAAS. The bags were decorated with the theme "How can I protect the environment". Special thanks to Albertson's Store Manager - Roger Eads, Dr. Wyatt (Principal), the teachers and all the kids for their wonderfully decorated grocery bags. This year we had 23 classes participate and next year we hope to have all classes to help.
Scott Palmer - PTA Enviro. Chairman (spalmer@ikon.com)
Wedgewood Elementary
Friendswood, Texas

F.M. Gilbert Elementary in Irving, Texas, participated in the Earth Day Groceries Project, 1998!. We decorated 300 bags all with beautiful pictures of our earth, suggestions to help take care of our earth, or inspirational and encouraging thoughts about our earth. The children loved getting involved and LOVED going to the store and seeing other student's work. I am so proud of our school and the students who took on a project that in essence is an everyday project, not just on one day celebration.
Amy Hunt ahunt@irving.isd.tenet.edu

Mrs. Marie Maierhofer, principal of Stockdale Elementary, introduced this project a few weeks ago. There were 479 bags decorated, with the help of students from kindergarten to sixth grade. It was a great project! We cannot wait until next year.
Roxanne Seidel (roxys@axs4u.net)
6th grade teacher
Stockdale Jr. High, Stockdale Elementary
Stockdale, TX

Greetings from Brownsville, Texas. Some of our K-5th Grade students decorated a total of 185 bags for HEB on Southmost Road. This was the first time we participated in the project. The students really enjoyed themselves and were excited to share their concerns for the earth with others. Wonderful idea. We look forward to participating next year.
Reynaldo Garza Elementary drcardenas@ies.net
Brownsville, Texas

Mission Bend Elementary School in Houston, Texas is participating in the project. We decorated 750 bags to be distributed at Albertson's Food Market here in Houston. The students did a great job decorating the bags and the whole school is excited about the project. The local Albertson's Food Market was very receptive and excited as well. The Houston Chronicle has scheduled a photo shoot at the store. So it looks as though we'll even get some press coverage. A great project for Earth Day 98!
Thanks
Steve Fowler
fowlerfolk@aol.com

We decorated 330 beautiful bags!
Sydney Bradfield (bradfields@hays-cons.k12.tx.us)
Dahlstrom Intermediate
Buda, Texas

Sheppard Elementary School on Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas is happy to report that we made Earth Day groceries a school wide projet. We took five hundred grocery bags from our commissary on the base and we managed to decorate approximately 450 of them.
Thanks for the opportunity to make a statement in our community. We will look forward to participating with you next year!
Teri Smith smithh2o@wf.quik.com (student teacher)
Sheppard Elementary Third Grade

Our PK-5 campus all became involved. We had a great time and decorated 875 bags for our local HEB. We then took several of the bags out to our local mall and made an exhibit promoting community awareness.
Liz Stewart, Mary Rogers, L. Cerna (lizz@tenet.edu or megsss@swbell.net)
Franklin Elementary School http://www.port-arthur.k12.txus
Port Arthur, Texas

I saw a article about this project in the AIMS magazine. We have decorated and distributed 445 sacks--we were shooting for 500!! We'll try to do more next year! This is a great project, and our students really enjoyed being a part of a nationwide project! Great idea!
Cindy Robinson (CRobnsn903@aol.com)
LH Rather JR High
Bonham, TX

Hyer Elementary School decorated 566 grocery bags donated by Simon David II in Dallas, Texas. Art teacher, Sandy Miller, coordinated this project. Students were very enthusiastic about sharing their concerns for the earth with the community. It was a fun project which promoted awareness of everyone's responsibility to care for the earth.
Cindy Galpern (cyndga@aol.com)
Hyer Elementary School
Dallas, Texas

I am a Jr. at Panhandle High School. I student teach a 1st grade class. In my class we are coloring 20 bags in our class. I know the kids will have a blast doing it.
Krissy Black
Panhandle
Panhandle Texas

We decorated 380 bags! Our bags came from Albertsons, Carival, and Cost Plus. Please check our site next week for a Earth Day Groceries page.
Stacey Hoppenstein (shoppenstein@irving.isd.tenet.edu)
John R.Good Elementary School
http://www.irving.isd.tenet.edu/Schools/ELEM/GoodWebSite/1stpage.htm
Irving ISD

(Picture!)
Our art teacher, Cindy Sadowski, has volunteered to do this project with our entire school of 850 students. Children in grades K-5 are participating by decorating bags from three area grocers. The stores involved are Albertsons, Carnival and Cost Plus. Our school, Paul Keyes Elementary has joined forces with two other schools in Irving.These three schools, Paul Keyes, Gilbert and John R. Good are asking parents to shop at the local grocers during the week of Earth Day. We've reminded them to be sure to ask for "paper". We loved this idea. Thanks for taking the time to put it on the internet. I'm sure we'll be back next year.
Margaret Watrous (mwatrous@irving.isd.tenet.edu)
Paul Keyes
Irving, Texas

We are going to decorate 18 bags in our kindergarten class. One per child.
Debbie Belicek kinderdebb@aol.com
Coupland ISD
Texas

Winn Dixie lent us 450 bags for our students to decorate. All the Shooting Stars are excited to get started on this project.
Judy Brooks silverlk@fastlane.net
Silver Lake Elementary
Grapevine, TX

At St. James Day School, a private school celebrating our 50th year in Texarkana, Texas, the entire student body (3 year olds - grade 6) participated in decorating bags for Earth Day. In grades 1 -6, students designed a bag in art class and decorated another bag when extra time was available in their homeroom classes. In our preschool classes, we designed our bags at learning center time in conjunction with a unit on recycling and ecology. The students enjoyed decorating the 500 bags to be distributed to happy shoppers at our State Line Albertson's Store on Earth Day.
Dixie Wilder
dwilder@stjames.txk.org
http://www.stjames.txk.org

Texas Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1997

Just want to let you know that we decorated 855 grocery bags with recycling, reducing, and reusing messages for Furr's, our Partner in Education. This was our first year participating in this project and it was a huge success.Thank you for your continuing efforts in this worthwhile project.
Sincerely,
Lindsley Silagi lisilagi@socorro.k12.tx.us
5th grade teacher
H.D. Hilley School
693 N. Rio Vista
El Paso, Texas 79927

Hello there!
I am a student at the University of Houston and am presently in a site-based program at Spring Branch Elementary in Houston, Texas. We put together an Earth Day Fair last week for the students. It was a great success. One of the booths was the grocery bag project. We got Fiesta Grocery Store to lend us some paper bags, that of which approximately 650 were decorated with various Earth Day messages and pictures. Several pictures were taken of the project and I was interested in seeing if I could send you some and have them placed on the site. The students of Spring Branch Elementary would absolutely LOVE it!!! The project and entire fair was a great success. Thank you for the wonderful idea!!! I hope to hear from you soon.
Thank you,
Stacy Tawater
markmcclellan@shellus.com

Greetings from Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas. We are located about 15 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Our environmental club, FOREST, (Fair Oaks Ranch Environmental Student Team) decorated over 200 bags from HEB in Boerne. On Earth Day HEB invited our club of fourty 4th, 5th, and 6th graders to come help sack groceries using our decorated bags. This really got everyone's attention and gave our students the opportunity to spread the word about Earth Day.
Thanks for the great Earth Day Groceries Project.
Sharon Surber
Technology Coordinator
fairoaks@texas.net
Fair Oaks Ranch Elementary
Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas

Our Kindergarten students (6 classes) decorated 350 grocery sacks to be distributed between our two local stores. The students really enjoyed decorating the sacks. It just goes to prove that even Kinder. students are not too young to participate in this project. We had the local newspaper photographer take a picture of the students delivering the sacks to the stores. One store donated ice cream and cookies to the children. Thank you for this wonderful idea. It will be an annual event at our school from now on.
Kitty Jones Kittyj@flash.net
J.J. Ciavarra Elementary School
Devine, Texas

The charter members of our ACW Student Council (formed Fall '96) have carried out your project of creating public awareness of Earth Day via designing decorated Earth Day grocery bags for our local Brookshire's Grocery Store to use to sack their customers' groceries on April 22. We involved the entire school (grades 4,5 and 6) by passing out Brookshires grocery sacks and asking each homeroom class to hold elections for the two best decorated grocery bags. The 2 winners from each homeroom received 30 minutes of free recess on April 21. One hundred and sixty four grocery bags were decorated with the Earth Day theme and delivered back to Brookshires. We would very much like to receive e-mail on what other schools have done with this project. Our school name and address is below.... Thanks for the great idea!
Becky Parker, ACW Student Council Sponsor
Becky Parker blparker@tenet.edu
http://www-tenet.cc.utexas.edu/minigrants/parker.html
6th grade Social Studies teacher and Student Council Sponsor
A. C. Williams Elementary School
Commerce I.S.D., Box 1251
Commerce, Texas 75428
work # (903) 886-3758
FAX (903) 886-6228
If you aren't living on the edge, you are taking up too much space ! !

This project was great. We have a school of 900 students. Our 4,5, and 3rd grades are all getting ready to take the state test (TAAS) next week so I offered this project to the lower grades. 1st grade is getting ready for a PTA program, 2nd grade was busy with a field trip so our Kindergarten classes to share a bag and were able to decorate 80 bags for the Minyard Food Store in Irving. The turned out to be great. When I returned the bags to the store they begin putting them out even before I left the store. I am glad you gave me the idea and I will use it again next year and maybe can involve more students. Irving has 19 elementary schools so maybe next year I can even talk a few more in to participating. Thanks,
Marcia Lorine Chewning mchewnin@tenet.edu

Didn't know about a set project on this, but I led up a school-wide project on this and we did 500 grocery bags for our local store....
Barbara A. Crawford
barbarac@tenet.edu
Glen Rose Elementary--3rd grade
Glen Rose, TX 76043

At Berry Elementary we decorated 700 bags. HEB Pantry donated the bags. It was an easy and fun project, but sends the RIGHT message. Thanks for the idea!!
Graciela Kavulla tkavulla@juno.com
Berry Elementary
Houston, Texas

The Sixth graders of Olle Middle School are in the process of creating 250 bags for the Kroger store down the street on Bissonnet. Each student is being given leaway to use their own designs. The teachers monitor for spelling and other problems. The bags will be returned to be distributed before Earth day.
Mrs. Geneva Fry grfry@ollemail.alief.tenet.edu
Olle Middle School

Houston, Texas (Alief ISD)
http://www.alief.isd.tenet.edu/orgframes.htm

Texas Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1996

Enthusiastic students at Trinity School of Texas, a private school in Longview, Texas, decorated 375 beautiful Earth Day Bags for the Gilmer Road Brookshire's Food Store in Longview. Community response was great! The bags were part of our school-wide, all-day Earth Day activities that included cross-grade teams planting trees and flowers, composting, and starting a sensory garden. Thanks for a great idea.

Please send a bag count to Dianne Shaw,
K-12 Gr.Envir. Ed. Coordinator/Teacher
dano16@rapidramp.com

Higgins Intermediate School is in Whitehouse, TX. Whitehouse is located in northeast Texas about 100 miles east of Dallas. We have 874 students enrolled in grades 4,5, and 6. Fourth and fifth grade students decorated 606 grocery bags with the Earth Day theme "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Around the World". Brookshires of Whitehouse provided the sacks and we are very grateful for their cooperation. Students have been interested in the project and we are anxious to get the results. Please e-mail the results to me. Thanks for giving us an opportunity to participate.

Letha Hebb,
ldhebb@tenet.edu
Librarian, Higgins Intermediate School
Whitehouse, TX 75791

Again, thank-you for the great Earth Day Groceries project idea! Our students have thoroughly enjoyed it, and have also enjoyed accessing your school's web page. Our web page is currently under construction, but we're hoping to include some pix of the sack project.
We decorated a total of 900 sacks for 3 different grocery stores. If you're not too swamped, will you be E-mailing the results, or will you have it on the Ednet listserve? Thanks again!! Your project has helped give our school some recognition in our community! HAPPY EARTH DAY!

-Debra Ziegler
Teacher, 4th grade, Bendwood School
Spring Branch Indep. Sch. Dist.
Houston, TX
zieglerd@macsmtpgw.spring-branch.isd.tenet.edu

Texas Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1995

This is such a wonderful project - I don't know who got more excited, our kids or our local grocery store!! Albertsons cheerfully "loaned" us paper sacks and were will return 685 beautifully decorated sacks to them this afternoon for their use this weekend. Every grade level in our school participated. We have 800 students: pre-school deaf-ed, K-6 regular ed, deaf-ed and elementary skills and the thought and care that went into these sacks was wonderful. My favorite slogan came from a fifth grader "Take care of endangered animals - they can't be RE-STOCKED!" (great for a grocery sack!!) Wr followed your suggestion and had a uniform format for each sack - Earth Day at the top and a large circle in the center. The children wrote their slogans around the circle with pictures within the circle as they chose. Thanks for spearheading such a great project and for the suggestions and support that made it EASY as well as memorable. Happy Earth Day to all!!

Joan King, Computer Lab Manager
J. B. Little Elementary School
3721 Little Road, Arlington, TX 76016

king@tenet.edu

My students and I have collected and counted 566 grocery bags decorated by the third, fourth, and fifth grade students at W.L. Kissam Intermediate, Chapel Hill ISD, just outside of Tyler, Texas.

I went to the grocery store Saturday morning to have my groceries sacked in our bags and they were already gone at 10:00am.

The grocer and the students were excited about the project. Thank you for such a wonderful idea.

Kathy
harrisk@tenet.edu

Hello from Baytown, Texas. We are just east of Houston, Texas. Our first grade class made 60 sacks for Randall's to pass out on Earth Day.

 Cathy Edwards                       
 Pumphrey Elementary School                       
 Baytown, Texas                   
 E-Mail jalle@tenet.edu

Texas Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1994

I read your posting and thought i would give it a try. 500 grocery bags from our local store will be distributed to the first, second and third graders at our school Petrosky Elementary in Houston, Texas for environmental messages.

Thought you might like to hear about our other project. On the morning of Earth day students will bring pennies to buy trees through the Children's Earth Fund. The Student Council will accept the pennies, count them, give each child a computer made "card" with a picture of the globe that says "Pennies for the Planet" and contributors will receive a stamp on the back of their hand of the world. Student Council loves these projects and can't wait to "tattoo" people.
Sheila Rooney LangArts/Soc.Studies Specialist
Petrosky Elementary Alief ISD
srooney@tenet.edu Houston, Texas

From: Beverly Maresh Blinka
Hi! After reading your suggestion on the Earth Day Grocery Bags, Somerville Elementary, Somerville, Texas, decided to participate in a Earth Day Grocery Bag project. We designed and distributed 393 grocery bags to 3 grocery stores in our area. Please add this amount to your final grocery bag total. The children enjoyed the project and came up with some really neat bags.

Thanks for giving the information about the Earth Day Grocery Bag project on Kidsphere. I read most of the responses and would be glad to inform you that I include my 2 classes of 9th grade Health students in the project. We decorated 211 grocery bags with recycling, stop smoking, drugs, violence, and other safety public service messages. We also decorated about 400 small lunch sacks that were distributed to our students at the "Express" line for lunch! It was interesting watching my students react to working with crayons and markers once again, but overall I would say the majority of them had a good time and can be proud. I know the local grocery customers will like the decorated bags. Thanks again for sharing your idea. I think we may have been one of the few High Schools involved this time. I plan to tell others during a workshop this summer! Could you send me a tally of numbers and places where students did this project.
Take Care,
Perky
---
Joyce Perkins jperkins@tenet.edu
Hardin-Jefferson High School
Sour Lake, TX 77659

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