Wyoming Scouts Exceed Goal for Goodwill Drive!

Rachel Leininger, Caroline Ammerman and Cindy Peebles.

It started with a simple idea. The City of Wyoming Girl Scout troop 42844 under the leadership of Cindy Peebles wanted to do something to help their community to promote the importance of recycling. The troop decided to do a community donation drive in support of Ohio Valley Goodwill. At the same time, Caroline Ammerman, a member of Wyoming’s Environmental Stewardship Commission, was researching different ways to increase community recycling efforts and talking with Goodwill Donations team member, Eric Scott, about the implementation of the new goBin ­â„¢ Textile Collection System being launched by Goodwill.

Now, through this exciting community collaboration initiative, a responsible recycling movement in partnership with Goodwill is being launched in the City of Wyoming. Wyoming High School is doing its part and eagerly awaiting delivery of the goBinâ„¢ containers which will be placed in the school for collection purposes. Tim Niemiller, Environmental Sciences teacher at Wyoming HS, and his students are working hard on a social media launch for the new recycling effort.
The Wyoming Recreation Center already has Goodwill donation containers throughout their facility and are also eagerly awaiting the delivery of the goBinâ„¢ containers. Scout leader, Cindy Peebles couldn’t be more proud of troop 42844 as they exceeded their original goal of collecting 2,000 pounds of donated product for Goodwill. The result of their community collection drive was 2,883 pounds!

The Girl Scouts had an even bigger vision in choosing to execute a clothing drive. They linked the recycling aspect of a clothing drive with the opportunity to increase donations to Goodwill because of Goodwill’s broader economic impact on creating jobs. They made this link because their main goal was to impact a bigger global concern: economic poverty. And they were even more excited to learn they could directly impact the City of Wyoming’s recycling rates. For their efforts, the girls will receive the Girl Scouts Global Action Badge. The certificate that will accompany their badge reads in part:

“Your community service project –Goodwill Clothing Drive and Wyoming Textile Recycling Initiative–has been instrumental in helping realize one of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which aim to reduce extreme poverty and impact major world concerns. Earning this award means you have demonstrated your highest effort to engage as a Responsible Global Citizen.”

“We think that what the City of Wyoming is doing to increase our responsible recycling efforts could be a model for the other neighborhoods in the Greater Cincinnati area,” said Caroline Ammerman, Environmental Stewardship Commission. Ammerman along with Wyoming Director of Recreation and Citizen Engagement, Rachel Leininger, and Peebles all agree that that their shared communication and the inspiration of the Girl Scout troop’s hard work is a powerful reminder of the importance of community and working together to achieve shared goals.

Follow this story to learn more when the goBinsâ„¢ are delivered coming soon. For a list of Goodwill donation locations, visit www.cincinnatigoodwill.org/donate. Our thanks to Girl Scout troop 42844 on their community activism, to the City of Wyoming for their encouragement of responsible recycling and to the Wyoming Recreation Center and Wyoming High School for their support in this exciting recycling initiative.