Dill encourages students, church to practice stewardship through recycling
Posted by The Skyliner on April 15th, 2009Jessicah Peters
Staff Writer
Dee Dee Dill, a familiar face around the post office, has been called to voice her opinion on the importance of recycling. She is the Woman’s Missionary Union director at Blue Ridge Baptist Church.
The church has decided to partake in recycling in a humongous way through collecting cans and paper.
“We were interested in doing cardboard and plastic, but all the recycling centers I contacted said you would need a tractor trailer load before you would get any money from them,” Dill said.
Since the church does not have that much room to hold all the bottles, they keep a four ton recycling bin on the church property. Every week the church puts an announcement in the bulletin, reminding all members to bring their cans and paper, and spreading the environmental involvement to friends and family.
After the church has been collecting for only three weeks, the bin has filled up half way. This recycling effort will be ongoing, because the church is committed to recycling, and will continue this from now on, as long as there is not any unforeseen problems.
“I will continue to explore avenues to see if we can expand our efforts to card board, and plastic in the future,” Dill said.
A four ton recycling bin is relatively large—it holds 8,000 pounds of paper and cans. A case of paper weighs up to 50 pounds. Therefore, if each member or student brought Dill a box of old used papers, the recycling bin would be filled in no time.
Many students have become lazy in doing their part as to keeping not just their dorm rooms clean of trash, but it is even worse to see a student not even pick up their trash from the student center. We often complain about seeing trash everywhere, but feel that it is not our duty to clean it up.
Old class notes, paper towels, can be recycled for a good cause.
First, students can keep the environment clean, but also help Blue Ridge Baptist Church raise money to pay off a new sanctuary. They currently owe a principal balance of $249,000.00.
Dill and her husband have felt that this is their call to not only keep the environment clean, but also raise money for the church to build a new sanctuary.
“My father had Alzheimer’s and died a year ago last December. His favorite pastime in the last months of his life was to go and pick up cans on the side of the road. He could no longer work, so he thought picking up his cans was his job,” Dill said.
Every time they drove by the road and saw a can he would yell to stop so he could pick it up. Because Dill’s father was committed to recycling, she and others were greatly impacted. Therefore Dill has set a goal for herself to become that same impact to others, and wants students at NGU to get involved.
Any time a student goes to the post office, Dee Dee wants you to bring by any paper or cans. Her goal is to bring a box of paper from NGU every time she goes to church. This goal is easily approachable if students will make it a point to pick up their cans and used paper products.
“God has created us such a wonderful place to live and look how we treat it. I definitely want to do my part,” Dill said.
All proceeds of the recycled products will be used to pay off Blue Ridge Baptist Church’s sanctuary. She has already impacted the lives of many church members to recycle, and believes in encouraging many more.
Students can have this same impact on their fellow colleagues by starting off with this outreaching project to help a local church. Bring all cans and paper to the NGU post office, and Dill will bring them to the recycling bin at church.