Bright, bold, colorful: Youth volunteers beautify Staunton's recycling center ahead of Thursday's ribbon-cutting

STAUNTON — "I asked for bright, I asked for bold and visible, and that’s what I’ve got," chuckled Staunton's Director of Public Works Jeff Johnston as he beheld swirling colorful patterns and a giant painting of the Earth on the side of a shed in the city's new centralized recycling center.

Johnston had a wry smile on his face on a hot and sunny Wednesday morning as a platoon of youngsters ranging from the sixth grade to recently-graduated high school seniors painted, chatted and painted in every color under the sun, occasionally calling out edits or potential idea changes for the design that the youths had put together.

It's an interesting way to spend the final days of summer vacation before school starts, but YMCA Youth Volunteer Corps program director Stephanie Mason said that she'd had no problem motivating the assembled youth to take part in the project.

"It's even more impressive that their parents aren’t here," Mason said, "They’re doing it all themselves. The ideas, the motivation, the excitement, the help, you know?"

"[Joining the Youth Volunteer Corps] was something that I wanted to do. Like, when my mom told me about it, I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do that, I want to help people while having fun at the same time,'" said volunteer Jade FItzgerald.

Due to weather issues throughout the summer, it had been a sparse two weeks for the volunteer corps in terms of projects, and the idea of creating a vision for the shed certainly got the group excited. Four of the youths, including Fitzgerald and Iris Ramsey, put together the entire vision for the shed's design in an hour-long Monday meeting. Two days later, those visions were being executed.

Ramsey smiled when asked how she felt about working on the project, saying that it was a little stressful.

"This is a building that’s really going to be standing out to people when they come and take their trash and stuff," Ramsey said, adding, "So it’s definitely like, ‘OK, how can I make this look really good for people when they come in here?’”

Why is the city making the recycling center look pretty?

According to Mason and Johnston, the idea to have the kids paint the shed came together in less than a week. Johnston had reached out to Shenandoah Green for help, and they had in turn connected Johnston to Mason. A week later, and the kids were soaking in the hot Virginia summer while painting bottles, flowers, and recycling symbols.

The rush on Johnston's part was partly due to the upcoming school year, when the volunteer workforce wouldn't be as available to help out. The other side is the impending ribbon-cutting for the recycling center, set for Thursday, Aug. 3 at 10 a.m.

That won't be the official opening of the center, as it actually began service on July 1. Since the opening of the center, Johnston noticed that some residents have had issues picking out the recycling center amongst the facilities at the public works compound.

"It’s a lot, but that’s what we asked for and that’s what we want," Johnston said with a chuckle, adding that he didn't think anyone would have issues finding the recycling center with the shed painted.

The design process was surprisingly collaborative, according to Johnston. Both he and Mason pointed out that while the kids had ideas of what to add to the design, the nature of recycling meant that they had to scrap certain ideas. With regulations and requirements for recyclables constantly changing, they wanted to make sure the design would fit whatever those rules would be in the future.

"He said that we can’t do certain, specific bottles because stuff changes over time, like, super fast, so that was definitely interesting," Ramsey said.

"The purpose here was not to educate them, but they’ve got a much more vested stake in recycling than I do at this point so they are naturally curious and I’m happy to share what I know," said Johnston. "This is embarrassing, but I was younger than these kids when I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life. So I want to try, at least, to spark that interest in the next generation. This is a group, obviously, that isn’t afraid of public service and understands the importance of chipping in so I thought this would be a good idea."

What's been the reaction to the new recycling center?

Johnston said that after an initial period of pushback to the move from Gypsy Hill Park, the department has seen more and more positive comments about the set-up off of Craigmont Road. People have appreciated the space, and over time, Johnston believes that the community will appreciate that the center won't have to randomly close for park activities.

As far as collection goes, Johnston said that the third week of July was the most amount of customers that the recycling center had seen in two years of operation. There were over 800 customers, which amounted to a 25 to 30% increase in activity. He's unclear on what has been the cause in the dramatic increase in customers.

One reason offered by Johnston was the expanded hours of service, as the center has six additional hours where they will accept customers. A majority of those overflow hours are on Thursday and Saturday, which are historically the busiest days for the recycling center. If the opportunity arises and the data indicates it as necessary, Johnston wouldn't be against the idea of expanding hours further.

"What you see here is the results of a lot of hard-earned lessons that we had down at the park, and I'm excited to show people that we’ve been able to employ some of that," Johnston said. While he is excited about the ribbon-cutting, he wanted to caution people that the ribbon-cutting didn't mean they were done working on the center.

"Recycling is dynamic, we’re going to be dynamic too," Johnston said, adding "We’re better postured here to react to the twists and turns and changes than we were down at the park."

That means that if the opportunity arises, curbside recycling could make its way back. Johnston said that the city hasn't done anything to preclude that possibility, but the necessary infrastructure needs to be established in the Shenandoah Valley first. The important thing, according to Johnston and the American Public Works Association, is to not stop recycling. If the program is ever halted, it would become increasingly difficult to restart it again.

"Staunton has made it painfully clear to me that they want to recycle. Message received, loud and clear," Johnston said, adding, "There will be changes because I’m always looking for the best way to do it, but we will recycle. We will always recycle in some way, shape, or form."

—Akhil Ganesh is the Government Reporter at The News Leader. You can contact him at aganesh@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @akhildoesthings.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Bright, bold, colorful: Youth volunteers beautify Staunton's recycling center ahead of Thursday's ribbon-cutting