Avon Lions Club partners with St. Joseph Coborn’s for recycling initiative

by Guest Writer

In August 2020, the Avon Hills Lions Club decided to create a recycling program offered by the Trex Corp. Trex offered a free recycled material bench for any organization recycling 500 pounds or the equivalent of 41,500 plastic bags within six months.

Clair Rogers, manager at Coborn’s in St. Joseph, agreed to take the bags of plastic. Three bags were brought in, three times a week with each bag weighing about 10-20 pounds.

The Lions secured three drop-off points within the city of Avon. The businesses in Avon who agreed to help us out were: Gathering Grounds, K & S Pharmacy, Avon City Hall and Tischler Wood Products. Boxes from the Trex Corp. were set in these businesses and fliers were distributed throughout town to explain what we were doing, what kind of plastic was acceptable, and why we were doing it. The Avon Hills Lions Club checks these boxes twice a week at each location, placing all bags collected into clear plastic 45 gallon bags. These bags are then tied shut, weighed, marked with the weight, recorded onto a stat sheet and taken to Coborn’s.

“Since the City recycling program does not take plastic bags, the community project became a huge hit,”  said Cheri Appel, a member of the program. “It was so popular we achieved our 500-pound goal within six weeks!”

The Lions now had a problem as you can’t just tell people not to bring in their plastic for four more months so they partnered with the Albany/Avon BSA Troop 1032 and the Avon Women of Today to rotate the gathering of plastic. 

So far Coborn’s has recycled more than 3,000 pounds of plastic through the club.  Two new park benches have been given to the Avon Parks & Recreation and one to Coborn’s to commemorate their 100 years of service as a grocery store and for their great help in keeping plastic out of the landfills.

“Without Coborn’s help, this project would not have been possible.” Appel said

The Avon Hills Lions Club Chartered in December 2019 and is open to both men and women in the Avon area. Lions are the largest service organization in the world with 1.4 million members worldwide in 206 countries who share a core belief that our community is what we make it.

Lions are well known for successful initiatives in vision and health. Lions service is as diverse as their members. Lions volunteer for many different kinds of projects – caring for the environment, feeding the hungry and aiding seniors and the disabled.  If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of, contact Appel at 507-829-3562 and she will help you find a Lions Club near you.