Kiwanis, R-I collecting lids for buddy benches

Poplar Bluff Kiwanis Club has partnered with R-I elementary schools on a project designed to help students who are lonely or having a bad day.

Through the partnership, the two are working on creating a buddy bench for each for the four elementary schools. This buddy bench, which is made from recycled plastic, will sit on the playground. Once the bench is placed, teachers will explain to students about its purpose as a somewhere to go if they’re feeling lonely or need somebody to play with. The idea is that an adult or another student will come help.

“Our Kiwanis goal is to help students and children in the community,” Incoming Kiwanis President Dennis Ward said. “The buddy bench program itself is not original to us ... It’s just the idea for kids who maybe wouldn’t speak up to give them a place to go to make a connection with an adult or another student.”

The benches are made out of recycled plastic caps and lids from items such as medicine bottles, milk jugs, detergent, spray paint, baby food and shampoo bottles. Donations of items can be taken to the elementary schools, Ward said, or to several organizations around town such as the Municipal Library and Memorial Baptist Church.

On the school’s end, each put together a group of students to participate in sorting and packaging the lids after they’ve been delivered. When sorting, the students are tasked with sorting out any delivered lids that are not deemed as acceptable.

It takes 250 pounds of plastic to make a bench. Ward said he suggested the schools collect an extra 10% in case there’s some items identified as not acceptable when the lids get delivered to the factory to make the bench. They’ll be taken to Green Tree Plastics, LLC in Evansville, Indiana.

“They take those caps and make a plastic bench,” Ward said. “We bring it back and put it on the campus.”

Ward said it typically takes Green Tree Plastics about eight weeks to make a bench from the lids. However, when the caps are taken to the factory they’ll return with a bench that is already made. The plastics delivered by the schools will be used to make other benches for other groups who are interested and bring their own lids.

“Once you get your plastic collected, you call Green Tree Plastic and let them know that they have the plastic and then you set a date to take the plastic up,” Ward said. “If you have met that goal, then you just pick up a bench. They’ll make another bench with the plastic you take.”

Ward said as far as he knows, Oak Grove Elementary is the only school that has met the goal and is ready to make a bench. The school has set up a student leadership team, which is responsible for going through the lids and getting them ready to go to the factory.

“I think it’s going to be more meaningful when we get that buddy bench because the kids actually participated in collecting those lids,” Principal Jenifer Richardson said. “We’re excited about that because we’re going to be able to put that on our playground. The end goal of that is if you don’t have anybody to play with and you go sit on this bench, somebody comes up and sees that you need a friend to play with. Hopefully it’ll help build those student relationships as well.”

Kiwanis is also working on getting sponsors for the benches. Along with the lids, each bench costs between $300-$400. The bench itself is $300 with an extra $50 for a specific color and/or a sponosor’s or school’s name on it. Ward said the Kiwanis is prepared to help with that if needed and the Rotary Club has volunteered.

The goal is to have these benches in place by the end of the school year at each school. However, Ward said they’d like to continue the program at other schools in the area.

“There’s some other schools like Sacred Heart and Westwood and there’s also in the region schools Twin Rivers and Neelyville that we hope, once we get these four in place, we hope that we can even add to that,” Ward said.