Outreach in Action

Outreach provides community services with an eye to protecting the environment

by Jo Mayer and Paul Crandall

Reduce, reuse, recycle. This phrase dates back to at least the 1970s. And while it might not be the first thing you think of when you think of Outreach, this phrase describes a large part of what Stockbridge Community Outreach is all about.

• We recycle multiple carloads of cardboard each month, not to mention using some of it to pack food for our pantry shoppers.
• Much of the food we offer in our pantry is either donated or purchased at low cost from the Greater Lansing Food Bank (GLFB), which collects literally tons of discarded but still useable food from area stores.
• Our Wednesday “Pop Up” food distribution is almost entirely made up of food donated by area farms, GFLB, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We unload it from pallets and package it in paper bags, then load the bags into the vehicles that line up between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. each Wednesday.
• We offer a free clothing and small household goods store. How do we manage it? The answer is: Recycling and Reusing.  Generous community members donate their gently used items, and our volunteers sort and display them for anyone who visits. Important Note: Due to space constraints over the holidays, Outreach cannot take in donated used items during November and December. Please hold these items until after January 12, 2025, when Outreach will gladly accept them again. Thank you for your understanding and patience!
• January through October, if we receive items that do not fit our needs or our space, we take those items to Goodwill, so they can be reused.

As you can see, lots of what Outreach does fits well with reducing, reusing and recycling.

And then there’s plastic.

The thing about plastic is it’s really good at some of what it does. Handling packages of frozen meat? It’s hard to beat the handy white plastic bags generously donated by Meijer. Beyond these bags, a glance around the Outreach pantry finds many other plastic items on the shelves—laundry bottles, dishwashing soap, liquid hand soap, water bottles, and more.

But there’s another side to the plastic story. According to the online article, Think That Your Plastic Is Being Recycled? Think Again, in the “MIT Technology Review,” only about 5% to 6% of plastics are being recycled each year. In addition, it’s very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to recycle many types of plastic more than once without problems.

To combat the reduce, reuse, recycle, challenges with plastic, Outreach is forming a task force to study the issue and see how we might replace the plastic that crosses our path with affordable, sustainable alternatives.

If you have ideas or thoughts to contribute, feel free to share them at [email protected].

Much of what Outreach does fits well with reducing, reusing and recycling. Image credit: Frames for Your Heart on unsplash.com

This column is sponsored by Stockbridge Community Outreach, our local food pantry, crisis, and referral center located in the Stockbridge Activity Center (old middle school) near Cherry and Elm streets in Stockbridge.
Office hours are 1-3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and by appointment. [email protected], 517-851-7285, or find us on Facebook