On December 8th we held our Kick-off day for the Don't Be Idle Campaign. We had a wonderful turn out for it!
We were able to secure media coverage of the event, and even got two slots on News Channel 8. The team decided to go to meet with the media at Oak Creek Elementary school. The afternoon started off with Jacob and Sierra giving a small talk to the 3 and 4th grade class that had taken on the campaign. The students had been studying the environment with their teacher and had made some wonderful posters and signs for the campaign. The students also were excited to tell us how they planned to go around to all the other classes in their school to teach other students about idling.
We were very impressed with the kids at Uplands. After the school bell rang, we led the class out in front of the school as they began parading up and down the sidewalk holding their posters reminding parents to not idle. It was great: we watched several cars come up and park, leaving their engines running. The kids would run up to these cars and very professionally ask them to shut off their cars, and they did. We also had the opprotunity to talk with a reporter from the Oregonian.
That night the team received a flood of e-mails from the student groups at schools around our district. Each of the groups we heard from had done a fantastic job. In total we probably had well over fifty kids out at the various schools holding signs and reminding parents to not idle their cars.
We have also begun to receive the numbers from the student groups. From what we can tell, the campaign has effectively eliminated idling at our schools!
Another bit of great news. We have recently secured a price for the permanent signs to be put up at the schools in early February of 2009. Instead of the predicted $35 per sign from an online site, we have made a deal with a local sign company called Instant Imprints to make our signs for just $16 a piece.
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