SANTA ANA : Tenants Join Paper Drive for Charity

Workers arriving at 4 Hutton Centre Drive Monday got coffee, doughnuts--and empty cardboard boxes.

Soon, on almost every desk in the 10-story building--from private, polished executive offices to secretary’s cubicles--boxes will be filled with recycled paper.

The impetus for the recycling program came from a copywriter in the building, John Jay, 46, who began collecting discarded paper around his company, Foote, Cone and Belding Advertising, and from other offices.

As more people in the building became interested, Hutton Management Services, the building manager, agreed to set up a formal program and pay for the cardboard boxes and bumper stickers which were handed out Monday.

For Jay, the program is a welcome relief from the 12 hours a week he has spent collecting paper, sorting it and carting it in his pickup truck to a recycling center.

“I’ve got my life back now,” he said.

On Monday, Jay stood in his green “Treepeople” T-shirt and urged colleagues to grab boxes along with doughnuts as they headed for the elevators.

The project is expected to save about 175 pounds of paper a day and raise about $300 a month. That money will be divided among the building’s tenants and given to charities of their choice. Foote, Cone and Belding will use the money to buy trees for the Costa Rican rain forest.

Already, the company has contributed $250 for 1,000 trees through a nonprofit group called Arbofilia. The group hires native families to plant the trees and care for them, creating jobs as well as restoring the rain forest, Jay said.

In the next couple of weeks, he plans to travel to Costa Rica to see the operation.

John Bonomo, assistant director of Hutton Management Services, said the company plans to expand the recycling project to its other buildings, beginning with another next week.

Eventually, Jay said, he hopes that all 12 of Hutton’s buildings will be recycling. In fact, Bonomo said, “I’d love to offer a challenge to all the other property-management companies to do the same thing.”