America Recycles Day 2011

Happy America Recycles Day!

Did you know that November 15^th is America Recycles Day?  Did you know that it is the only nationally recognized day that’s devoted to teaching about recycling, and encouraging consumers to use recycled products? 

America Recycles Day started in 1997, and since then it has been a day of celebration and education.  It’s a day to take a look at what you are doing for the environment and to think about what more you can do. 

Here at Kaleidoscope, we are addicted to Diet Coke.  We know it’s bad for us, but if Diet Coke is wrong the we don’t want to be right.  So we go through two or three 12-packs in a week, and while this is definitely not healthy for us, we try to make it healthy for the environment by recycling every last can.  Well that’s easy enough, but…

We started thinking: ‘What else can we recycle?’ so we did some research.  Of the long list of recyclable items, there are quite a few that typically appear in office lunches and snacks.  Here is our list:

• PET/PETE or Polyethylene plastics: soft drink bottles, water bottles, plastic wrap, microwave meal trays, and salad dressing bottles - these are marked with a ‘1’ on the bottom
• HDPE or High Density Polyethylene plastic: some juice bottles, plastic milk cartons, and yogurt containers - these are marked with a ‘2’ on the bottom
• Cardboard and Paper: microwave meal boxes, cardboard packaging
• Glass: soda or juice containers

How do we remember to recycle all the different types of materials?  And how do we remind our coworkers to do it too?  We decided the best solution was a simple sign that we put right over the trashcan:

Is there something you can do in your office or school to promote recycling?  For more information about America Recycles Day visit www.americarecyclesday.org

It’s Easy Being Green!

November 15th is America Recycles Day and we’ve decided to devote the whole month to the topic of recycling and the idea of ‘going green’.

What exactly does ‘going green’ mean?

And how do we make it happen?

We recently teamed up with a local company called DwellSmart to offer a free online fundraiser called GoEco! The Ultimate Eco Fundraiser to any non-profit organization (calling all schools!). Participants sign up and then up to 40% of purchases made on their school’s GoEco! site go directly to their school. It’s great because it’s easy, it’s green because it’s paperless… and parents will feel twice as good making purchases because they are helping their school and their environment!

One of the reasons we are so excited to work with DwellSmart is because they are one of our neighbors here in Charleston, South Carolina and we love the idea of working together locally to make a difference nationally. DwellSmart has a local store, but anyone in can check out and purchase the products they offer on their website. We love that they have a huge variety of items in a range of prices and everything they offer is eco-friendly.

They feature several products from Terracycle, a company that pays non-profit organizations to collect used drink pouches, yogurt cups, chip bags, etc. and ‘upcycles’ them to make them into new things. The resulting products are not only quirky and fun, but completely sustainable too – win & win!

Working with DwellSmart on the GoEco! program is just one of the things we’re doing to try to be more green. What can you do to be more environmentally conscious?

Who We Are

Hi there, hello, we’re new here!

Kaleidoscope is now venturing into social media (hooray!), so we’ve been thinking a lot lately about who we are as a company and what we seek to accomplish.

So, who are we really? Kaleidoscope Community Partners is a part of a larger marketing agency called Kaleidoscope Marketing. As a whole, Kaleidoscope Marketing works with large brands like Coca-Cola, Parenting Magazine, Samsung, and Axe to secure free contributions for organizations in the educational sector. Our team within Kaleidoscope Marketing is called the Community Partners because it’s our job to make sure the needs of the schools, districts, afterschool programs, daycares, camps, etc. are heard. We want to provide contributions that will be beneficial to you! It’s also our responsibility to make sure you know what Kaleidoscope stands for and what we’re up to.

To do that we’ve launched a Facebook site, a Twitter account, and the very blog that you are reading right now! We are here to provide you with information about our programs and helpful articles and ideas when we’re in between programs! But we want you to be able to communicate with us too, so comment, tweet, retweet, and repeat! Kaleidoscope is not a new company – we’ve been around for 15 years – but we are new to social media and we hope that by starting our Facebook, Twitter, and our Blog that we can open the lines of communication with you!

All About Us!

Hello! Thank you for reading our blog, Kaleidoscope Happenings!

Here at Kaleidoscope we work with companies to bring useful products and programs to schools and organizations. In order for these to be successful it is vital that we know what our community wants! We would like to use this blog to keep you up to date with everything that is going on in our company. We would also like to use this as a way to communicate with you! We want to know all about what you are thinking and what our company can do for your school or organization.

Enjoy our blog! Thanks for reading!