BOX TOP$ FOR EDUCATION

Early last week, I was sitting at a stoplight when a blue recycling bin on the curb next to my car caught my attention. The bin was one of fifteen to twenty similar bins set out by the residents in that block for collection, and it was overflowing with cardboard cereal boxes and other recyclable material. I’m a big fan of recycling, and it pleased me that most of the recycling bins were filled to the brim, but the bin that originally caught my attention contained things that had no business in a recycling bin, or even a trash can for that matter. What were they? Box Top$ for Education!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I’m referring to, Box Top$ for Education are small postage-sized coupons that are located on the packaging of a vast array of supermarket products, the most notable being General Mills cereals, Betty Crocker baking products and Ziploc items. Scott brand products and Progresso soups carry them, too. To the purchasers of those items, the Box Top$ for Education coupons might appear worthless, but to a school – public, charter or parochial, those coupons are worth ten cents apiece. Campbell soups have Labels for Education labels on their products. Those labels are worth ten cents, too.

Do you intentionally throw out money in the trash? I know I don’t, but every time one of those Box Top$ for Education coupons or Education labels gets tossed out on the curb, that’s exactly what somebody is doing. If that somebody is you, listen up. Find a spot in that junk drawer in your kitchen and start saving those Box Top$ for Education and Labels for Education coupons. When you accumulate a pile, find a neighbor kid who’s in school and have him or her take the coupons to the school office. The bag I sent to school last week contained forty dollars worth of coupons. In the interest of full disclosure, that included coupons others gave me, but the local schools still get forty dollars that otherwise could have gone out with the trash.

At first glance, Box Top$ for Education might seem like a poor topic for a progressive blog, but here’s the thing. If we want our children to learn to be conserve resources and raise their social consciousness, we’ve got to start out with the little things, because small stuff heaped on small stuff eventually becomes a mountain. Every week, hundreds groan in editorial columns around the country that school taxes are too high and the cost of education is too expensive. Whenever I read stuff like that, I wonder how many dimes are discarded in that writer’s recycling bin that could have gone to a school instead.

Many parents of baby boomers lived through the Great Depression. Conserving resources became embedded in their bones. Average folks born in later years had an easier upbringing, and unfortunately, the need to scrimp and save slowly fell by the wayside. In the wake of our Nations’ recent recession, it’s become clear that a renewed focus on conserving fiscal resources is a necessity. It’s also clear that properly educating our children is an expensive proposition. If we want to achieve both, we’ve got to begin with the small stuff, and not tossing out dimes in the trash seems like a good place to start.