Ryan Graham, 6, of Delray Beach is a study in concentration as he fills his K-Cup with potting soil and seeds. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Ron Hayes
Erin Donahue’s dog ate her homework.
Before she could eat it herself.
Barkley, the family’s Shar-Pei mix, romped into the back yard one day and dug up all those tomatoes and chives, the rosemary and basil that Erin had planted so lovingly and tended so loyally.
This would embarrass any seventh-grader, but it’s especially awkward for the co-captain of the K-Cup Crusade at St. Joseph’s Episcopal School in Boynton Beach.
“He’s just a puppy,” she explained, protectively.
And the K-Cup Crusade continues to grow.
The idea blossomed after Erin attended the Solid Waste Authority’s 3R (Reducing, Reusing, Recycling) Ambassador summer program. Urged to apply what she had learned to a service-learning project to promote “living green” at school, she was sitting at the breakfast table one morning when inspiration struck.
“My parents were making coffee in a Keurig machine,” she recalled, “and I realized they were perfect little pots to hold a seedling plant.”
Keurig cups, for those who still swear by Mr. Coffee, are the small, prepackaged plastic containers, slightly larger than an individual serving of cream, that are loaded into Keurig machines to make a single cup of coffee.
Erin’s mother, Michelle Donahue, is St. Joseph’s development director. When she heard her daughter’s idea, the project quickly developed.
Parents and teachers, students and administrators are collecting K-Cups as if they were rare postage stamps. And every second Tuesday of the month, they’re put to work.
Lucy Ream (right) and Sophia Rex tag-team the weeds that grow between the rows in the school garden.
For nearly an hour, the first- and sixth-graders pair off beside the school’s 10-by-60-foot garden, where tomatoes, eggplants and green peppers are well on their way to a harvest.
With the older kids lending a hand, the first-graders scrape coffee grounds into compost buckets, and the K-Cups are set aside to be washed and planted with seeds.
“My biggest challenge is to teach them it’s OK to get their hands dirty,” Michelle Donahue laughed. “Put your hand in the dirt and feel it! Touch it! It’s OK!”
In addition to germinating seeds for their own school garden, the students are packaging the cups with dirt pellets and seed packets to be distributed at school and community events.
First-grader Ryan Fellowes labels his seedling cups.
And next year they’ll send the packaged K-Cups to students in New York and New Jersey to help communities affected by Hurricane Sandy replant school and community gardens.
So far, the students have collected about 820 cups, with a goal of 2,000 in mind.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, the philosophy of “Living Green” had clearly inspired the students.
“Green means to keep the world healthy and be good to the world,” explained Ryan Graham, 6, of Delray Beach. “I’m planting … ” He frowned. “Let me think … cucumbers and watermelons.”
Watermelons? In such a tiny coffee container?
“It’s going to grow up,” he said with confidence.
“I’m learning that you should help the Earth stay healthy and pick up garbage,” said Sophia Rex, 6, of Boynton Beach, as she packed a K-Cup. “I’m planting everything there is. If you saw it, you’d be amazed.”
The K-Cup Crusade is only one project in a school-wide “Live Green” program. In time, the students’ garden will be harvested and the tomatoes, eggplants and green peppers used in meals, which in turn will yield a cookbook.
The school has elections for its “Live Green Council,” as well as “Green Ambassadors,” who carry leftover fruits and vegetables from the lunch table to the compost bin.
And the message seems to have taken root.
Alyssa Gangale is one of the co-chairs of the Boynton Beach school’s K-Cup Crusade.
Erin’s co-captain of the K-Cup Crusade is Alyssa Gangale, 12, who organizes exhibits and talks that highlight the school’s “Live Green” projects.
“We never had a recycling bin at our house,” she confessed. “Until now.”
For more information, visit www.sjeslivegreen.org.
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