BURBANK : School Wins Award for Recycling Efforts

Students from La Verne Heights Elementary School looked high and low for a visual almanac for their computer software, and they found it in Burbank on Wednesday.

“Everybody wants this,” said Kenya Cox, a fifth-grader who headed the La Verne school’s KidsCan campaign. Holding the software package the school won, Kenya said, “We couldn’t find it anywhere, and now we got it.”

The ceremony for the winning school was held Wednesday at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in Burbank to show off the school’s computer lab. Actors dressed as Fred and Wilma Flintstone were on the stage along with Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on the original “Star Trek.”

La Verne Heights Elementary was named top recycler by KidsCan, a joint-venture program, after students collected 5,800 cans and bottles in four weeks, earning $225 for their school. The money was used to buy a new laser printer for the school’s computer lab.

KidsCan is a joint venture of Los Angeles-based Technology for Results in Elementary Education (TREE) and Environmental Products Corp. of Fairfax, Va., which manufactures automatic recycling machines. Under the project, about 40 Los Angeles-area schools recycle bottles and cans, using the proceeds to buy computer equipment. KidsCan started in October, and organizers are hoping to expand it statewide.

“It’s to show that we want to go from the primitive kind of classroom to the classroom of the 21st Century,” said Alice McHugh, president of TREE.

“I’m for whatever levels the playing field for students,” Koenig said.

The point for educators is that the KidsCan project--which includes schools from affluent Yorba Linda as well as South-Central Los Angeles--gives schools a chance to buy much-needed computer equipment.

“Technology is here to stay,” said Bonnie Powell, principal of Roosevelt school.

“As educators, we owe it to our children to usher them into this age of technology with confidence.”

Recycling had already been a big theme with La Verne Heights Elementary School, Kenya said. The school already had programs for recycling lunch trays and white paper. They also offer incentives such as small prizes to encourage kids to donate.

“I’m convinced of the fact that we must have some of the most unhealthy kids from all the soda cans,” Kenya said. “We had a lot of fun with this.”