Putnam Valley Middle School is getting greener everyday! The Go Green Initiative, an organization bringing environmental awareness to students around the world has named the Putnam Valley Middle School as their Go Green School of the Week for April 27 – May 3, 2008. The Middle School’s Go Green Club held a community meeting in the beginning of the year to teach students and staff about the importance and effectiveness of composting and recycling.
	Recycle: They began with the goal to recycle paper, cardboard, cans, plastic bottles, glass, cell phones and ink cartridges. Their future goal is to recycle sneakers. Compost: Food scraps from the cafeteria were collected and composted.
	Fundraising for solar panels: They sold energy efficient light bulbs to the community. Sorted cans to recycle the 5-cent cans. Made about $12 a week. The Student Council sponsored the Go Green Club to host a Green Day. Students paid $1 to wear green during Spirit Week. $3000 was raised. Work Globally: Change collected in the cafeteria was used to adopt 10 acres of the rain forest in Africa.

Treehugger.com features the school of the week on their website. Owned by The Discovery Channel, their website gets 4.7 million page views a month. Read the Treehugger article about Putnam Valley MS

From Treehugger.com

“   When the students and staff in the Go Green Club at Putnam Valley Middle School held a community meeting back at the beginning of the school year to help educate other students and staff about the importance of composting and recycling there’s a very good chance they didn’t know how far their efforts to green the school would take them… In fact, it’s probably taken them to heights the may not even have imagined if they’d tried; raising $3000 during Spirit Week from students and staff who each contributed $1 to wear green so that they can achieve their goal of putting solar panels on the roof of the school, putting the sun’s energy to good use while they’re busy learning inside. And to go along with their vibrant recycling and food scraping programs at lunch they’ve also scraped up enough cash through donations of spare change to preserve 10 acres of rainforest in Africa while they’re at it. Clearly, the folks at Putnam Valley Middle School are making a difference. Congrats!   ”