California Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1999

I'm glad it's not too late. I came across your project and my neighborhood grocery store donated 500 bags to an eager and cooperative staff. We'll do it again. Thanks.
Webster Elementary School
36477 Ruth Ave.
Madera, CA 93638
Nancy Kent
Kindergarten Teacher
Diana Kenney
Franklin Elementary School
Alameda, CA
Bags decorated: 260
Comments: Franklin Elementary School held it's second annual Earth Day Carnival on April 22, 1999. We had over 25 activites for the students to participate in. Kindergarten students had K guides to take them around to the different "events".K guides are 4th and 5th grade students. The Monday before Earth Day Lucky's grocery store donated 260 paper bags to be decorated. Each student decorated a bag and we returned them to the store in time for Earth Day. Keep Up the Good Work!!! Thanks for the Good Ideas!! Diana Kenney
Helen Marish
Los Angeles Children's Museum
Los Angeles CA, USA
Bags decorated: 2,400
Comments: Everyday is Earth Day! Decorate grocery bags throughout the whole year.
My name is Lynne Rappaport and I am writing on behalf of Lakeshore Alternative Elementary School in San Francisco, California (part of the SF Unified School District). This year was our first time participating in your wonderful grocery bags project; I was the parent volunteer coordinator for Lakeshore. Students from kindergarten through grade 5 decorated 586 grocery bags (we have about 640 students total). The bags were loaned to us by Lucky Supermarket, courtesy of store manager Don Borg. I took a roll of color pictures of a sampling of the bags and the grocery clerks at the store--could these be included in the website? (forgive my computer ignorance; these pictures were taken with a regular Olympus camera, not a digital camera, and I don't understand the technology well enough to know if they could somehow end up appearing on a computer screen! I look forward to seeing our report on the website. Thank you so much
Lynne Rappaport
Jeanne Kumagai
Patricia Nixon Elementary School
Cerritos, CA USA
Bags decorated: 610
Comments: Thanks to Ralph's Store director Dave Wentworth of Store #165 in Lakewood, CA for supplying the bags! The students enjoyed this activity!
Cynthia L. Senenko
Chartwell School
Seaside, CA USA
Bags decorated: 100
Comments: This was a great project. We have a student body of 72 children and were pleased to have everyone participate. Two of my students and I were interviewed on KION News Channel 46's (Salinas, CA) morning show. They were very interested in the project and making the community aware of our Earth Day projects. It was a great experience for my students to be able to see the television studio and be on television. This project, along with some others, really helped the children become more aware of what Earth Day is and what we should be doing everyday to save the Earth. Thank you, this was great!!!
Dorothy Wilson
Longfellow Elementary School
Pasadena, California USA
Bags decorated: 350
Comments: Longfellow Elementary School received 350 paper grocery bags from RALPHS Grocery Company, a supermarket chain in Southern California. Longfellow is a school of 940 students and 41 classes. Our primary classes decorated the bags with trees and other plants. EARTHDAY, April 22, 1999, was a BIG EVENT at Longfellow School. TreePeople, an environmental group dedicated to planting trees in urban areas, along with Pasadena Beautiful selected Longfellow School as a place for beautification in Pasadena. Local businesses and organizations donated funds to plant 50 trees on the Longfellow campus and along two surrounding streets. All 41 classrooms planted and named its own tree on EARTHDAY. We had more than 200 tree specialists, volunteers and visitors at Longfellow on EARTHDAY. California Governor Gray Davis selected the Longfellow EARTHDAY Celebration as the site to announce his $3.1 million forestry initiative for the greening of California which will give matching grants to schools and cities that plant trees in urban settings. The Governor planted a camphor tree on the Longfellow campus. The grocery bags from RALPHS supermarket were hung along the corridor through which the Governor was expected to pass. The bags were also hung on transportable bulletin-boards-on-wheels that were placed at the outdoor ceremony for display. The Longfellow primary students enjoyed decorating the bags with earth scenes. The whole Longfellow student population appreciate the trees as objects of beauty on our campus, as a source of shade on hot days, and as a source of oxygen in the atmosphere. The Longfellow students were intensely focused on the tree planting process through the expert guidance of the TreePeople specialists. The specialists are well trained in forestry knowledge and in strategies for capturing and maintaing student attention and motivation. EARTHDAY was a wonderful day at Longfellow Elementary School. Longfellow is particularly grateful to the businesses and organizations of the Pasadena community for their contributions to the beautification of Longfellow. We are grateful to Coleen Shine for telling us about the Grocery Bags Project and sending by U.S. mail the instructional posters for the Project to Longfellow School.
Our school is Ascension of Our Lord in LaPlace, LA. Thanks a lot! Mrs. DiMaggio's eighth grade reading students decorated over 100 bags participating in this great project. The bags were then returned to our local Winn Dixie for shoppers the day before Earth Day. In addition, these students designed and displayed six Earth Day Bulletin boards around our school, including information about Earth Day, endangered animals, and how to recycle. It was a great week for all of us. The plants that we planted are still blooming around our classroom!
Mrs. Amy DiMaggio
Reading Teacher
Ascension of Our Lord School
LaPlace, LA
Judy Franceschi
St. Mary's Elementary School
Walnut Creek, CA
Bags decorated: 140
Comments: The 6th graders organized the grocery project with the help of a parent volunteer. They brought in sample grocery bags from their local stores to see which had the most blank space for their artwork. The Lucky Store in Walnut Creek gladly donated 140 bags, so that each student grade 3-6 could decorate them. The teacher took photos on decoration day and a student volunteer dropped them off at the store when they were done. What an easy project! The students love to do art and it was a good way to remind them about Earth Day and its importance.
Patti Lloyd-Garrett
Littlejohn Discovery Club
Fair Oaks, CA. U.S.A.
Bags decorated: 62
Comments: My children had alot of fun doing their part to promote the importance of environmental conservation in our community. Their creativity was a joy to behold. Thanks, Patti
Frances Fink
Magnolia School
Brawley, California, USA
Bags decorated: 67
Comments: Magnolia School participated for the first time in 1999's Earth Day Groceries project. Our school decorated 67 bags which were donated by Von's Stores in Brawley. Many thanks to Von's managers for their help. Over half the students from Magnolia participated in the project, including all the third and fourth grade students. Our goal for the 2000 project is all-school participation.
Linda Slater
Escuela de Montessori
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Bags decorated: 50
Comments: This is the first year that our school has participated in this project. Our 4th graders decorated our bags from Ralphs and then we had a field trip to the store to deliver them on Monday, before Earthday. The manager greeted our class and our bags were put on display. Our students received more bags to decorate. We will ask our parents to use these bags when they go shopping so that they don't have to have new bags used each time they go. We will make some magnets for Mother's Day using this theme - Re-Use/Reduce/Recycle with a picture of the grocery bags - to remind our parents to re-use their grocery bags instead of getting new ones each time they go to the market.
Andy Smith
Pine Crest School
Sebastopol,CA
Bags decorated: 27
Comments: I am a fourth-grader and I organized this project as part of my trimster project at school-"The Power of You". The idea is to find out how much one person can do to help the earth. I got all my classmates to help me with the grocery bags. We had fun coloring them.
Ella
Lakeshore Elementary
San Francisco
Bags decorated: 700
Comments: My school decoated bags. It was a hit!
Katy Downs-Stroh
French Camp Elementary
French Camp, CA
Bags decorated: 275
Comments: It was an easy and greatly enjoyed project. Everyone wants to do it again next year. Hopefully we'll have more teachers participating.
Wendy Harden
Redway Elementary School
Redway, CA
Bags decorated: 330
Comments: bags decorated by K-6 students for Shop Smart Store in Redway and Sentry Market in Garberville
dtoomey
All Souls School
South San Francisco, Ca USA
Comments: 5th, 6th 7, and 8th decorated 400 bags for Lucky Store in San Bruno, Ca
Kris Alexander
Pack 807 Boy Scouts of America
Tustin, California
Bags decorated: 50
Comments: This month the kids had a theme of "Pollution Solution" and the children decorated the Earthday Bags as their project. They had a great time in doing it. Jason Alexander was the co-ordinator for the project. thank you
Deanna Bernard
Kitayama Elementary School
Union City, California
Bags decorated: 640
Comments: Our school is new this year. The school consists of grades K-4 We thought it would be fun to get a community based service project together and send out a message to the public that we care about the earth. The Lucky store in our area donated the bags and used them on Earth Day. I will be e-mailing pictures of our project for you to put up on the web site. Our students enjoyed doing this project. They were creative with art work and slogans.
Kitayama Project Organizer
Deanna Bernard
Floy Creveling
First Baptist Church Service Center
Santa Ana, CA.
Bags decorated: 58
Comments: We had 58 of our school age kids participate in decorating bags from our local Ralph's. (Located at 17th and Bristol in Santa Ana, CA.) After decorating bags, our 4&5 year olds went on a field trip to our local Ralph's to return the bags. The Manager there was very helpful. The manager took the kids on a tour of the store, took pictures, handed out goodie bags (a real hit), and displayed some of the bags. We love the idea of bagging customers goods with the rest of the decorated bags. Thank you to Ralph's for all their help and support in making this a fun and exciting project for our children.
Karen Garcia
Rio Hondo College
Whittier, CA USA
Comments: The Earth Club of Rio Hondo College sponsored their first 'Spring Campus Clean Up'. A total of 56 students, faculty, staff, and residents participated at this event held on Saturday, April 24, 1999. One of the members brought to our attention the 'Earth Day Grocery Project' you are sponsoring. We wanted to use your bags to pick up small pieces of trash around the campus. Normally, clean up crews use the big black trash bags that never get filled to capacity. We thought by using your "We're Putting Our Environment First" grocery bags to pick up the smaller pieces of trash around the campus we would produce less waste. The following local Ralphs Grocery Stores donated the bags to our cause: Store #245, Store #162, and Store #246. In addition, we were able to recycle most of the glass bottles, plastic bottles, and aluminum cans we picked up.
Our goal is to make the 'Spring Campus Clean Up' an annual event. Our objective is to bring awareness to the students, faculty, staff, and local community. We must make everyone realize that the harm we inflict upon our envirionment, we are also inflicting upon ourselves.
Caryn White
Hyatt Elementary
San Jacinto, CA
Bags decorated: 400
Anne Thomas
Kings Beach Elementary
Kings Beach, California
Bags decorated: 480
Comments: Our whole school took part in this project -- the variety of designs and messages was wonderful! We're a bilingual school in a community with many Spanish-speaking residents, and so our messages reflected this. Our children are very aware of environmental issues as we are situated on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe and have lots of concerns about pollution and water quality. It was a great project -- the people at our local Safeway store were enthusiastic and we even got a front-page article in the Tahoe World on Earth Day!
Kathy Peterson
San Gabriel Elementary School
Atascadero, CA
Bags decorated: 615
Comments: Our kids at San Gabriel Elementary School in Atascadero California really enjoyed this project! Many primary classes worked with their upper grade "buddies" while other classes worked on their own. We look forward to participating next year.
Diane Fagan
Ernie Pyle Elementary School
Bellflower,CA
Bags decorated: 725
Comments: The whole school, grades 1-6 participated in Earth Day Groceries Project. The Student Council distributed the bags throughout the school and collected them on Wednesday, April 21, 1999. That afternoon we delivered the bags to Rallphs Grocery Store and Alondra and Bellflower Boulevards in Bellflower, California. They gave each student a nickel for recycling. Many classes in our school did other activities to commemorate Earth Day. The first grade planted beautiful flowers in our teacher's lounge area. Other classes learned about recycling. The project was a lot of fun and the students learned a great deal
Kate, Amanda, Clarisse, and Gina
Acacia
Thousand Oaks CA, U.S.A.
Bags decorated: 525
Comments: We thought it was a great idea and it was fun for all of us. Hopefully we can participate in it again next year. The entire school participated in a whole week of Earth Day fun where we did such activities as recycling cans, making posters for Earth Day, and on Friday, April 23, the whole school had a rally where we got together and sang and danced. We also decorated the Ralphs grocery bags of what they thought Earth Day meant. Thank You for giving Acacia the oppurtunity to help recycle and help save the envirorment.This will prove to the community how important it is for us to respect our Earth.
Bay Laurel Elementary
Calabasas, Ca. USA
Bags decorated: 120
Comments: What a great project for the children to be involved in both for Earth Day and the community! Thank you for taking an interest in getting the children involved!!
We're St. Clement School at 790 Calhoun St. Hayward, CA 94544 and we just wanted to let you know that we participated in the grocery bag project.
We collected 225 bags from the local Lucky's, Safeway and Foods 4 Less stores. Our student body got into "families" which were made up with students from kindergarten through eighth grade, then broke into pairs (younger with older)to decorater a bag. The pictures and themes that were used were anything from save the whales to the rain forest, recycling to help keep the city clean. In all the students really enjoyed the doing there part and were excited to know that when they shopped at the local stores that they may get one of the bags that they decorated.
Maryann Harris
Administratvie Assistant
I did this last year at a private school w/ my kindergartners (12) and I now work for Los Angels Unified School District. I work at Van Nuys Elementary in Van Nuys, California. I teach 1,2, &3 Special Ed. mild/moderate. I have 15 students and I sent letters to all the teachers and asked for their support. I had 29 classes participate and we decorated 240 bags. I arranged to have my students take a walking field trip to Lucky's in Van Nuys, CA. We had a contest to see who could collect the most litter. When we got there we got a tour of the store. Gilbert, the store manager served fresh strawberries, cookies and the driver for Mother's Cookies was there and gave each child a bag of cookies!!! They also had a contest drawing for a soccer goal kit for Pepsi and my student's filled out the application which I brought back to the store with bags. The store manager, Gilbert, stated that they were going to donate the soccer kit to our school for doing such a nice job on the bags. All the kids were so excited and could not wait to go to Lucky's to see if they could get their bag or a friends. We also did a writing assignment after our field trip. They had to tell one thing they learned and what their favorite part of the field trip was. I had them illustrate it and glue on a large piece of green construction paper. I lamented it and hole punched it and that was our thank you card to Gilbert. He was very touched. It was a win-win situation and everyone had fun!!!! Thanks so much for starting this, this is my third year participating and each year we are getting more bags decorated. I have pictures but no scanner and would like to send you some. Could you give me an address as to where to send them!!! HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!!
Michele Severo,
Thousand Oaks, CA
I am a third grade teacher at Cedargrove Elementary School in Covina, California. I teach a cluster class of nineteen gifted and high achieving students. Each student decorated a shopping bag for our local Ralph's Market and I delivered them yesterday. My students have enjoyed this project and learning more about recycling.
Sincerely,
Kathy Walsh
Hi, I am writing to let you know that Mokelumne Hill Elementary School in Mokelumne Hill, CA participated in the grocery bag project for this Earth Day in 1999. We are a K-6 with an enrollment of about 123 students. A small school in a tiny northern CA community. There are two stores in the town that took part in the project. They donated the grocery bags and we went to work decorating them with our very own Earth Day messages. Besides the grocery bags, we had a large bulletin board with an environmental theme, a raffle with theme prizes, and in order to enter the raffle, the children had to fill out the entry form that went home in their Tuesday folders by listing five things they and their family could do to help keep the earth healthy. To top it off, we all enjoyed some Environmints (chocolate candy with a card of an endangered species in it). We as a staff think the entire project turned out well and was a fine learning experience for all. The people in the community enjoyed our project results also. We intend to participate next year and we are glad to have found your site. Thank you, Jeannette T. Willard
Carol K.
Basileia, An Open Door Community of Christ
Orange County, California
Bags decorated: A few
Comments: Sunday group prepared bags for this worthwhile project!
Pam Alch and Tonie Alfonso
Commonwealth Ave School
Los Angeles, Ca.
Bags decorated: 700
Comments: We were looking for something new and different to promote Earth Day in our school and community. We had full participation of our on track classes. We brought the bags to Ralphs Grocery Store on April 22. We are still continuing to decorate and bring in more bags on an individual basis.

Just a note to proudly let you know that Moreland Discovery School, San Jose, CA decorated 180 bags from Whole Earth Foods in San Jose, CA.
Sincerely,
Joni Steele
Parent Volunteer at Moreland Discovery School, Room 2
Peggy R. Skeen
Pine Grove School
Orcutt, California
Bags decorated: 200
Comments: The manager/owner of a small local market in the area was more than happy to donate the bags to our school. The children decorated them with Earth Day slogans and beautiful pictures of the Earth. The patrons of the store almost didn't want to take the paper bag home since it was no nicely decorated. The bags will be continued to be used even after Earth Day until they are used up at the store. It was a very positive experience for everyone involved. I will send a picture as soon as possible.
Cindy Mahrer
North Hillsborough Elementary School
Hillsborough, CA
Number of bags decorated: Between 150-200.
Third graders and one class of kindergartners at North Hillsborough Elementary School decorated bags from the local Safeway store. The students brainstormed Earth Day messages and enjoyed decorating the bags with the messages and colorful pictures. The Safeway store is allowing us to post a banner as well as several of the decorated bags. Next year we hope to involve the entire school in the project. It is a worthwhile activity that helps promote environmental awareness and the kids had fun too.
Cynthia Calamia
Orchard Elementary School
California
Bags decorated: 202
Comments: We had a great time decorating the grocery bags. This is the first year we are part of this project. It has been a great experience and we definitely want to keep doing it every year. Our school is year round, so most of the kids were not at school. We were able to do this project with the children that came for Intersession classes. Five of the teachers participated with a total of 90+ students. We delivered the bags to the local grocery store: PW MARKET. They are distributing them today. We would like to get our school name and our pictures on your web site. Please let us know how to get that done. We are looking forward to keep our Earth clean.
Judy Velardi and Elaine Hall
School of the Madeleine
Berkeley, CA. U.S.A.
Bags decorated: 315
Comments: We thought that this was a wonderful project. The children were very enthusiastic. We want to give a special thanks to Andronico's Supermarkets for their contribution of all the bags plus an Oreo cookie treat.
Bonnie Young
Happy Valley Elementary School
Santa Cruz, California USA
Bags decorated: 150
Mrs. Katie Jones
Newhall Elementary
Newhall, CA
Bags decorated: 18
Comments: The students loved the project and were excited to see their work displayed at the store. However, the manager was not familiar with the procedures of the program. I had to ask him to display the bags and explain to him the program.
Sandra Moreno
Will Rogers Learning Community
Santa Monica, California
Bags decorated: 18
Comments: Ms. Sarah Braff's 3rd grade class decorated 18 grocery bags in celebration of earth day. The bags will be delivered today to the Ralph's store at Cloverfield Blvd. and 26th St. in Santa Monica. The class would like to thank Ralph's for giving it the opportunity to send a message about protecting the environment.
Lesa Petrovich
La Mesa Junior High
Santa Clarita, Ca
Bags decorated: 300
Comments: Great project even for the older kids.
Karen Sherve
Richmond School (K - 8)
Susanville, California 96130
Bags decorated: 300
Comments: We read about your project in Current Health 1, March 1999. Student Council officers thought it would be a project they would like to coordinate. We have about 200 students in our school and all grades are participating. Susanville Supermarket is our cooperating grocery store. Thank you for sharing your idea!
Julie LaFleur
James Monroe Elementary
Bermuda Dunes, California
Bags decorated: 403
Comments: Our students had a great time decorating the grocery bags! We discussed ways to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. In honor of Earth Day, our school is planting a tree and dedicating it to the memory of Jessica Rae. Special thanks to her mother, Pam Rae (Noonyard supervisor) and her father, Tom Rae, manager of our local Ralphs Supermarket, for providing the grocery bags.
Allison T. Hackett
Windsor Hills Magnet
Los Angeles
Bags decorated: 38
Comments: My second grade class really enjoyed decorating the bags for earth day. They were excited about doing something to help the earth. Some of them, are going to try to get their parents to shop at Ralphs on earth day so that they can witness their bags being used by other customers.
Mrs. Orona
Carden Conejo School
Westlake Village, California
Bags decorated: 42
Comments: Hooray for Earth Day! We had a wonderful time decorating bags for Earth Day. What a great idea! This project brought up many intersesting topics and it heightened my students awareness of the community around them. I cannot wait to do this again next year! Hip Hip Hooray for Recycling!!!
Barbara Easton
Temple Beth El Child Development Center
Riverside, California
Bags decorated: 225
Comments: Great idea for a preschool and Kindergarten. Most activities in our area are for older children! Everyone could be successful! Thank you!
Barbara and the 147 children at Temple Beth El CDC!
Laura Gideon
Andasol Avenue School
Northridge, Calif. 91325
Bags decorated: 500
Comments: As chairperson of Earth Day, I had each student decorate a bag. From the money we collected, we are buying acres of the rain forest to be saved!
Mrs. Allen
Aliso Elementary School
Lake Forest, CA, USA
Bags decorated: 22
Comments: My students loved decorating the "Earth Day bags", and the local Ralphs grocery store was thrilled to receive them.
This is a great project! Currently, I am student teaching and decided to try it out at the school I am in. It ended up almost every class participated. We decorated 500 bags for Earth Day. The school is Centralia Elementary in Anaheim, California. Stater Brothers was the grocery store that donated all the bags. I was also able to get the local newspaper to do a write up on our participation. This was great fun and I look forward to doing this next year as a new teacher!
Julie Collier
Patti Hahn
Cloverly School
Temple City, CA 91780
Bags decorated: 1850
Comments: The Temple City Ralph's Market gave us $92.50 for coloring our earth day bags. The Cloverly Student Council will be donating that money to the Red Cross for the Children of Kosovo. It is not much but thanks for giving us a chance to do something for our earth and the children of the earth.
I wanted to report that two classes from 74th Street Magnet School in Los Angeles participated in the Earth Day grocery bag project this year. I read the article in the "Science and Children" journal and then shared the information. We received bags from two Ralph's supermarkets. One was in Culver City, CA and the other was in La Mirada, CA. I returned 36 bags to the La Mirada store. Some of the students took the bags to their local supermarket. Several of the parents got involved in the project and helped supply or return bags. We incorporated the bag project with the "Think Earth" instructional program, which is available in our area. Thank you for spreading the word about this project. We will look forward to participating again next year (and encouraging more teachers in our school).
Cathy Ferrin
3rd Grade Teacher
74th Street Magnet
Los Angeles, CA 90047
Daniel Jarvis
Palmquist Elementary
Oceanside, CA,USA
Bags decorated: 30
Comments: The kids really enjoyed it. Thanks.
Cathy Walter
Jane Addams
Lawndale,CA 90260
Bags decorated: 100
Comments: Thanks to Ralphs grocery, who provided us with the bags to decorate. We had a great time and learned a lot too.
Lisa Meena
St Paul the Apostle School
Westwood, CA
Bags decorated: 77
Comments: It was fun! It was a good learning experience!
Miss Larsen's Class
Ole Hanson Elementary
San Clemente, CA, U.S.A. Bags decorated: 18 Comments: Keep the earth clean!
Save the animals!
Keep the ocean clean!
Do not litter!
Mrs. Swan's Class
La Costa Heights
Caarlsbad,CA
Bags decorated: 18
Comments: We like your company and your groceries. Thankyou for the nickle.
OUr ideas for Ralphs to help the environment:
1. Use the front and back of paper.
2. Give your employees a day off to clean up trash.
3. Tell people not to smoke cigaretts.
4. Don't smoke cigars.
Ralphs Enicinitas gave us the bags.
From Mrs. Swan's Kindergarten class
Jennifer Price
Brownie Troop 530
Pacific Palisades, CA, USA
Bags decorated: 107
Comments: The girls enjoyed decorating the bags and are excited about having Ralphs distribute them to its customers. They really seemed to understand the value of reusing and recycling. Next year, why not decorate bags that we have already used?
Patricia J. Kohnke
St. Dominic Savio Elementary
Bellflower, CA
Bags decorated: 39
Comments: This was a great project for the children. They became very involved in the project. Ralphs gave each of them a nickel for their bag, which they donated to charity. We participated through Ralphs at South and Carmenita in Cerritos, CA, who really supported the project.
Jordan Lee Brazelton
Ceres Elementary School, Grades K-5
Whittier, California, United States of America
Bags decorated: 423
Comments: The students of Ceres Elementary in Whittier, Ca. decorated 423 bags with the help of the Ralphs Grocery store at Colima Rd./Whittier Blvd. in Whittier.
Mrs. L. Wenger
Kern Avenue Elementary School
Mc Farland, Ca
Bags decorated: 500
Comments: Oops on 1st attempt at sending this! I pressed enter too soon! (I'm a computer rookie!) Thanks for sharing and especially for beginning such a valuable projectl. Its so easy to do and share with other teachers!
Mrs. V. Buckley
Grant Elementary School
Colton, CA USA
Bags decorated: 250
Comments: After reading the article in Science and Children (NSTA pub.) I asked teachers if they had heard of the Project, if they were doing anything for Earth Day and if they were interested in participating. Two other third grade classes and all four of the second grades participated. The Stater Bros. store manager, George, was aware of the program already and very generous with the bags. I hope that next year we can start earlier and have more of the classrooms at our school site participate.(Maybe next year, pictures. This computer graphics, imports, etc. is still new to me!)
Bags decorated: 400
Comments: Our school just got their bags today. Many of our teachers have taken them to their classroom and the students are busy decorating. This is a great project. We're very pleased to be able to take part.
Ed Neely
Ole Hanson Elementary Sch
San Clemente, CA, USA
240 first and third grade students from Weibel School, in Fremont, California; have finished decorating our Earth Day Grocery Bags. The neighborhood Lucky grocery store will be distributing them on April 22. This is one of our favorite projects and we appreciate being able to read about it on the internet. Please add 240 more grocery bags to your grand total!
Susie Calhoun
Bags decorated: 223
Comments: OUR STUDENTS ARE VERY EXCITED TO BE PARTICVIPATING IN THIS EVENT. PLEASE NOTIFY US NEXT YEAR SO WE CAN AGAIN PARTICIPATE THANK YOU
MICHAELLE SIMS
STEVENSON LOWER/MIDDLE SCHOOL
CARMEL, CA. 93921
Bags decorated: 150
Comments: We are having a great time decorating the bags, as well as learning more about the environment. We have just finished our preschool science fair. Our first grade did a project on acid rain. The children really were able to see the effects of how acid rain can hurt the enviornment. The colored bags reflected their interest. Great Idea!
Kristine King
Montessori School House
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Bags decorated: 25
Mr. Kulp
James Foster Elementary
Saugus, CA, U.S.A.
Bags decorated: 400
Boyd Drewelow
Fremont School
Delano, CA, USA
Comments: We will be picking the bags up tonight. Ralph's market is giving us .05 a decorated bag which we will be donating to the Red Cross for the Children of Kosovo. Thanks for your help.
Patti Hahn
Cloverly School
Temple City, CA
Bags decorated: 60
Comments: My students really enjoyed working on this project since most of them shop at the local store where they will be on display. On Wednesday, we are planning a walking field trip to the store to view our art work before it goes to the consumers on earth day. In addition, we will be breaking off into groups to check out how many products we can find that are packaged in recycled materials.
Marian Johnson
Buena Vista Arts-integrated School
Montcliair, CA
Bags decorated: 28
Comments: Our 6th grade class enjoyed learning about reuse,reduce and recycle. We were glad we were able to participate in a project that will educate our community about recycling.
Mrs Jones
Valencia Elementary School
Laguna Niguel, California
Bags decorated: 450
Comments: James Leitch is a K-2 school and all of our students have decorated grocery bags from Lucky's which will returned in time to to used on Earth Day.The students had a great time doing this and the community will be reminded of a very important day.
Mary Lou Kroes
James Leitch School
Fremont, CA
The students at Centinela Elementary School in Inglewood, California prepared 600 Earth Day Grocery bags, which were distributed by our local Ralph's Supermarket. We loved the project and plan to participate again next year!
Anne Jones
first grade teacher

Bags decorated: 100
Camilla Hester-Alvaro
Cub Scout Pack 464
Walnut Creek, CA
Bags decorated: 380 bags
Comments: The students at St. Francis Xavier Elementary School are very happy to participate in the Earth Day Grocery Bag Project. Every student decorated a bag, the kindergarten class decorated three bags each because they were so excited to spread the word about Earth Day. We gave our bags to two Ralph's stores in Burbank. At our school we collect cans and paper throughout the year. Kindergarten also creates pieces of art from recycled materials---we make toy trucks and trains from tissue boxes, crayon holders from juice cans, etc..
Anne Wargo
Burbank, California
Bags decorated: 600
Robin Wargo
Van Buren Elementary
Indio, CA
Bags decorated: 33
Michael Loy
Van Buren Elementary
Indio California
Bags decorated: 40
My Kindergarten class joined up with Mrs. Armenta's 2nd grade class to send out our Earth day messages. They were very excited! Lucky grocery store in Roseville donated the bags.
Dori Wolfenberger
Quail Glen Elementary School
Roseville, CA, USA
Bags decorated: 160
Comments: Hi! Our school, Vivian Banks Charter School, is a k-5 school located on an the Pala Indian Reservation in Northern San Diego County. It is the only public school in California that is also located in a historic California Mission. This was our first year participating in this project. All of our students decorated a paper grocery bag for Earth Day ( a total of 160 bags). We obtained our bags from a Ralphs store in a nearby town, Escondido. Our school was featured in a local newspaper that was doing a write-up about Earth Day. We would like to thank Ralphs for donating the bags to our school, and we hope that their customers enjoyed our art work. We look forward to participating in this project again next year! Happy Earth Day from the students at our school!
Dome Galvez
Vivian Banks Charter School
Pala, California
Bags decorated: 20
The children had a great time decorating their bags for Earth Day. This activity gave us an opportunity to have a good discussion about the need to take care of our Earth. Thank you for allowing us to participate. This made for some very teachable moments.
Anne Gillespie
Valley Elementary School
Poway, CA
Bags decorated: 29
Comments: We are in the middle of giving the state test. What fun my 2nd graders had decorating the bags given to us by Ralphs as we took a much needed break. The children were so creative and really enjoyed discussing what they each could do to make our world a better place. Thank you for organizing this worthwhile event.
Mrs. Ann Hamilton
Moreno Elementary School
Moreno Valley, CA
Bags decorated: 650
Jennie Lund
Brentwood Elementary
Brentwood, CA, USA
Yes, we are participating:
Ms. Cyndy M. Mandell,
teacher;
Topaz School, 14110 Beech St., Hesperia, CA 92345.
We have collected over 600 bags so far.

California Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1998

Based on information received from the Paper Bag Council of the American Forest and Paper Association:
2,000 bags
-- Los Angeles Children’s Museum
-- L.A., CA
Based on information received from the Paper Bag Council of the American Forest and Paper Association:
150 bags
-- 122nd Street School
-- Los Angeles, CA
Based on information received from the Paper Bag Council of the American Forest and Paper Association:

1,200 bags
-- Girl Scouts from 14 counties at "California Kaleidoscope" event
-- Stockton, CA


This year is our first time conducting Earth Day Groceries Project. We worked with Ralph's Supermarket. Our students decorated 500 bags. Students had great fun doing it. It was a wonderful learning experience for everyone involved. Our local newspaper, The Highlanders, came out to take pictures, and wrote a short article which published the next Monday. Some pictures will be figured on our school web site also. :-)
Margaret Hesselgrave (mhesselgrave@hlpusd.k12.ca.us)
Los Molinos Elementary School http://www.los-molinos.hlpusd.k12.ca.us
3112 las Marias Dr. Walnut CA 91745
We obtained 500 bags from the local Lucky's Grocery Store. The 500 kids (K-5) at our school decorated them. I then returned them to the store where they were used to bag groceries on Earth Day. We also hold an annual Earth Day celebration! Each class is responsible for preparing an activity for all 500 kids. We also had the Waste Management Board, the local disposal company, fire department and even Smokey the Bear join us. Through out the year, we have adopted a local creek site to clean, manage and we are raising Rainbow Trout to plant in the creek.
Mrs. Diane Hernandez (hernandz@innercite.com)
Louisiana Schnell School
Placerville, CA
My Kindergarten class decorated the bags from a local Albertsons grocery store and then we walked to the store to deliver the bags. Along the way we collected litter and put them in some clear plastic bags. The store manager was enthusiastic and welcomed us! He then let the children go to the produce area and pick out one piece of fruit to eat on our trip back to school! We colored 30 bags and hope the community enjoyed them. They were darling! One of the students thought it would be funny if her mom actually got "her" bag back! Thank you! We had fun and the students learned about keeping our Earth clean!
Michele Severo MAS0316@aol.com
Kindergarten Teacher
Woodcrest Preschool
Newbury Park, CA
The grocery bags were a real good idea. We decorated 26 bags.
Chris Delgado (goleary@humboldt.k12.ca.us)
Cutten School
Cutten CA,40.75N,124W
Santa Rosa Elementary School is located in Atascadero, California. Our K - 6 grade school had a great time decorating 589 bags which were then distributed by our local Luckys grocery store. Luckys and our local newspaper were both very enthusiastic in supporting our project. Many of the primary projects worked with buddy classes to decorate the bags. We hope to participate again next year!
Kathy Peterson kpeterson@sre.atas.k12.ca.us
Grades K-5 at our school participated in the Earth Day Groceries Project. We decorated 125 bags. The bags were obtained from Raley's Grocery Store in Red Bluff. Every shopper who goes through checkstand #4 on Earth Day and chooses paper vs. plastic will have their groceries put into one of our bags. We enjoyed participating in this project.
Kathleen Grimes and Lois Stillwell (sacredheart@snowcrest.net)
Sacred Heart Parish School
http://www.catholic.org/schools/ca/sacredheart/
Red Bluff, CA 96080
Students decorated approximately 300 bags to be used by a local grocery store to be used to bag groceries on Earth Day. Students enjoyed the project and felt that they were promoting the message "Save our Earth"
Mary Jo Sassen Kinder Teacher MimiSsn@aol.com
Vernon City El. School
2360 E. Vernon Ave.
Vernon, CA 90058
We participated in decorating grocery bags last year, too. This Earth Day we decorated 450 bags for our local Sentry Market in Shasta Lake City, CA.
Our school is Project City Elementary. We include grades K-4. We also added a decorated bookmark with tips for helping the Earth inside with info about our school.
The kids enjoy the opportunity to share their talents with the community.
Lillie Minsart lminsart@shastalink.k12.ca.us
third grade
Project City School
Technology Mentor
Carden School of Fountain Valley is pleased to have participated in the Earth Day Groceries Project. Ralphs grocery store gave us 150 brown bags. Our students have decorated and returned the bags for disbursement on Earth Day.
Have a fantastic Earth Day!!!
-Miss Jennifer Carter
Carden School of Fountain Valley
10460 Slater Ave.
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
Linda Updegraff lu@tothenet.com
My class and 2 other 2nd grades are decorating 200 bags.
Amy Brown (Abbaby333@aol.com)
Burbank Elementary
Merced, CA
We have decorated 500 grocery bags. This is a great project. It is our first year to participate.
Mr. James Duke, Fifth Grade Teacher (CCRoom408@aol.com)
César Chávez Elementary School
Coachella, California
This is Washington School reporting in. We are located in Santa Barbara, California and today we decorated 63 grocery bags for our local Lazy Acres market.
Washington Computer Lab wcomplab@sbceo.k12.ca.us
Our school decorated 250 bags. The messages were written in both Spanish and English since we are a Spanish Immersion school. Thanks to Lucky Store for donating the bags, and for letting our students share their concerns about the earth with their customers.
Martha E. Rodriguez (mrodriguez@onramp113.org)
Cesar Chavez Elementary
Davis California

California Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1997

Greetings! I'd like to report that Cabrillo Elementary School in Pacifica, CA decorated 500 paper bags for Central Food Market across the street from our school. Our local newspaper ran an article about the project. Thank you so much--our community felt very good about participating!
Laura Shain for Cabrillo
lshain@ix.netcom.com
Canterbury School decorated and sent 100 paper bags to Safeway in Ukiah. At first we thought we might not finish all the bags because we only have 13 students but we were able to do all of them is a very short time.
Canterbury School cantbry@pacific.net
Ukiah, CA

The Mariposa School in Ukiah, California is proud to report that we decorated and distributed around 200 grocery bags this year! Mariposa School is a small, rural private K-8. Our home page can be viewed at
http://www.pacific.net/~mariposa
From: mariposa@pacific.net
Hi! We are a K-4 school in Shasta Lake, CA. We requested bags from our local Sentry Market. In all, we decorated 450 bags...some I just wanted to keep forever they were so beautiful! Many carried on the theme of our "Moody Creek Watershed" ...protecting, planting, enhancing, studying...all the flora and fauna of the area.
We enjoyed the project and will do it again next year! We also included a decorated bookmark in each bag with 10 Things We All Can Do to Help the Earth and the name of our School.
Lillie Minsart lminsart@shastalink.k12.ca.us
Project City School
Third Grade
This is the first year we have participated in this great project. Our K-4 school re-opened in the fall after 15 years due to increased enrollment in our district. We decorated about 250 bags during two lunch breaks and returned them to our local VON's store. The manager was very helpful and reported that people responded well to the Earth Day bags. Next year, I will try to get the bags done on a district-wide basis in the classrooms!
Terri Ann Sullivan SESOM@aol.com
Robinson Elementary
Manhattan Beach, CA
Our students proudly decorated 389 bags. That is also the total number of students at the school.
Megan Bennett and Vana Meydag Teachpayne@aol.com
Tustin Memorial Academy
Tustin, Ca
We will be conducting our grocery bag project in conjunction with our 2nd annual Earth Festival on May 22 (A key teacher is off track in April, so we hold the festival in May rather than on the actual Earth Day.) Our local Save Mart supermarket will be providing grocery bags for the 1000 students at our school. Each student will be illustrating the slogan "Every Day is Earth Day". I can't wait to see the results !!
Cheryl Buettner cbuettner@telis.org
Miano Elementary School
Los Banos, California
Our local One Stop Supermarket provided 400 bags for our K-6 school to decorate. They plan to distribute them during Earth Week. Thanks for the great idea. Everybody wins!
Penny Dominici pdominici@cdepot.net
Ione Elementary School
Ione, CA
Our fourth grade class has decorated 27 grocery bags, which were donated by the grocery store across the street from the school. The store will use them on Earth Day, for customers!
Mrs. Kelley kkelley@lsusd.k12.ca.us
Cabrillo Elementary
Pacifica, California
We have 2 classes of 4th graders participating and we have 150 bags that are decorated and ready to bring back to Ralph's Market in Temple City.
Patti Hahn cloverly@earthlink.net
Cloverly School
Temple City, CA
The Earth Day Groceries Project has been taken on by the first and third grade PALS (a cross age tutoring program) at Fred E. Weibel Elementary School in Fremont, CA. The Lucky's store in Warm Springs volunteered to be part of the project. Altogether 240 bags were decorated with our school name, Earth Day slogans and pictures as part of our Earth Day studies. The students found it very exciting to read about this project on the internet. They also look forward to shopping at Lucky's on Earth Day! Many thanks to our computer specialist, Mrs. Sindelar, for introducing this project to us.
Susie Calhoun
Fred E. Weibel Elementary, Fremont, CA
We decorated 30 bags which will go to our local Lucky store. On the bag we tried to make it clear to everyone, that they should care about the earth every day.
Room 22,Second Grade,
Ms. Wood weibel.school@trivalley.com
Weibel School
Fremont,CA
http://www2.trivalley.com/weibel/
Our students really had fun decorating the bags and learned a lot in the process. Since ours is a mostly Hispanic community, the bags were done in English, Spanish, and some were done in both languages. We decorated 1,026 bags for the two main local stores. We also planted a tree that day on our playground (this is a twenty year tradition). My second grade students also "made" paper from recycled paper. They thought this was fun, but a lot of work.
Linda Allen lla15@lennon.csufresno.edu
Washington Primary
Mendota, CA

California Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1996

I apologize for reporting so late, but I lost your email and web site address and have just found it.
My school participated in your Earth Day Bag project.
My school is Highlands Elementary School in Pittsburg, California (San Francisco Bay Area). The entire school participated and sent about 700 bags to the local Save-mart grocery store. The kids were very excited about participating.
Thanks for the great (and easy) idea for an Earth Day Project. Our school is not yet online, and many of the teachers are not yet computer literate, so they were thrilled when I told them that I had gotten this project from the "net".
I hope that everything went well.

Thanks again,
Eric Heins
Multi-age Primary (1-3) teacher.
MrECH@aol.com


At the suggestion of San Diego Earth Day, Ocean Beach People's Natural foods Market packed groceries in Earth Day Grocery Bags deorated by the students of Silver Gate and Ocean Beach Elementary Schools. More than 1300 children decorated bags with environmental themes to encourage everyone. Crazy Crayons, a company in Oregon that makes recycled crayons from the broken pieces and stubs, agreed to donate crayons for the children to use. Whatever crayons are left over will be returned to Crazy Crayons to be melted down and reconstituted. Silver Gate also started a crayon recycling program for their 700 students.

Carolyn Chase,
Please visit ;-)
San Diego Earth Times, http://www.electriciti.com/sdet/
Earth Day Network http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/EarthDay/ednethome.html
Tel: (619)272-0347 (SDET)
FAX: (619)272-2933
email: cdchase@qualcomm.com
P.O. Box 9827 / San Diego CA 92169
"What is faith worth if it is not translated into action?" --Gandhi


How are you? We are one of the schools that participated in the "Earth Day Groceries". We are from Mariposa Elementary School in Mariposa California. We brought in 41 fully decorated grocery bags.

Mariposa Elementary School
mes@ims.mariposa.ca.us


Hello!
Great idea- this grocery bag decorating deal! Our grade school did about 200 this year! Not bad, considering we found out about this project just a few days before Earth Day! Thanks for the simple, positive action.

Peace,
Martin Kwaterski Scanlan
sanga@uclink4.berkeley.edu


I hope it isn't too late to report. Room 2 of Bella Vista Elem., in Monterey Park, (a suburb of Los Angeles) coordinated this activity for our k-4 school. We made 686 Earthday bags for Ralph's Grocery Store in Monterey Park. Mr. Kwan, the store manager was a big supporter and we wish to thank him, as well as Arbor Heights for this great project.

Sincerely,
Cheryl Long
Cherie111@aol.com


Our wonderful and dedicated students beautifully decorated 240 grocery bags. Our new local supermarket was humming with customers, all talking about the great student artwork. They were only allowed one decorated bag per customer due to demand! Next year, we'll try for 500 bags to get the Earth Day message out!

Copperopolis Elementary School
Copperopolis, CA
Stephen Mayer, Principal
smayer@telis.org


California Earth Day Groceries Reports - 1995

Happy Earth Day!
Great project idea. It was well received by school, merchant, and community.
Burnett Elementary School in Milpitas, California turned in 492 Earth Day Bags to Nop Hill Grocery Store.
Thanks again,
Denis Mullen
DJMul@aol.com
We were only able to decorate 70 bags, but that's a start. Maybe next year we can expand the project. (This year only our 4th graders participated.) We are looking forward to hearing what the totals turn out to be.

Yours,
Carol Goldsmith, Belmont, CA
CGoldsm250@aol.com

Here is another report for your info...they do not have email...so I am passing it along for them:

La Presa Elementary School
La Mesa-Spring Valley School District
519 La Presa Ave, Spring Valley CA 91977-6011 (619)668-5790
"We delivered 200 bags to a neighborhood Vons to be distributed. The students enjoyed designing the bags. Thank you for this idea. Sincerely, Diane Beene, Community Resource Coordinator"

Carolyn Chase, Earth Day Network,San Diego

Tel: (619)272-7423
FAX: (619)272-2933
Voicemail: (619)496-3361
email: earthday@qualcomm.com

 

WWW.EARTHDAYBAGS.ORG