Cafeteria Connection amps up recycling at Stillwater Elementary

Elaine Makarevich has been teaching at The Stillwater Elementary School for the past 30 years.

During that time, she’s worked school wide teaching children from kindergarten through sixth grade teaching Enrichment, Gifted & Talented programs and several years ago, initiating and seeing a school garden come to fruition. Her most recent project has been to spearhead Cafeteria Connection: a recycling program designed to add recycling bins and reminders to the cafeteria and have older students teach the younger ones where recyclables go.

“I wrote a grant last year which we received and the project was started,” Makarevich said. “Now we’re in our second year and the program is in full swing. We are very fortunate that Mark Maruska, of Gravity Design Works, donated several thousand dollars of materials and many hours of his and his crew’s time to add some amazing murals and signage to the cafeteria.”

The goals of the program include opportunities for students to design recycling bins, layout, signage, peer education and daily operations, from inception to delivery of recyclables to Stillwater’s town Recycling Center.

“Without a doubt, the Cafeteria Connection has had a positive outcome on Stillwater students, staff, and ultimately the world,” Makarevich said.

Sixth graders teach the younger kids which bins to put their recyclables. The current group of sixth graders will rotate throughout the school year moving to a new group of leaders each trimester.

“I like helping the younger kids with recycling,” sixth grader Gia Lupo said. “It’s like you get to be a teacher.”

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as both of her parents are educators.

“It’s great to show kids who don’t know where to put things where they go,” said Meike Koch, another sixth-grade member of the project.

Co-project member, Jaeson Hamczyk said he enjoys helping the younger kids manage their recycling and being a leader.

Gravity Design Works, which is based in Newton, was pleased to donate materials and time.

Makarevich said they donated all of the conceptualization and design time involved in this project. This consisted of over 30 hours spent creating, messaging, and graphics. It also included all the final setup. For the production work, $3750 was donated and there was no charge for the delivery and install.

“It’s been an honor giving back to the school that each of my children attended,” Maruska said. “We loved coming up with ideas to help [Makarevich] build awareness for her recycling program and then making them come to life. This was as important as any other client or project that we work on. Maybe even more important because those young minds are very impressionable. We look forward to the next call from Stillwater School.”