Newcastle's Dave Holbrook is an Earth Hero

Newcastle Elementary is a Green School, and Newcastle's custodian Dave Holbrook is one of King County's Earth Heroes at School. King County Executive Ron Sims will recognize the school and Holbrook on May 4 for their work to reduce solid waste costs and foster student awareness of environmental stewardship.

The District encourages schools to adopt the Green School program to reduce solid waste and the costs of disposing of waste. In fact, the district Resource Conservation Program coordinator John Macartney works with all schools and departments to reduce energy consumption and increase recycling efforts.

With the help of Macartney and King County, Newcastle studied how well it was conserving and recycling at the beginning of the program. Once they had the baseline to use to measure improvement, the county provided equipment and information, and Holbrook provided inspiration.

"Dave was phenomenal," said Chasma Gerron, Newcastle's program assistant who nominated him for the county honor. "For the program to be successful, our students needed to change their lunchroom habits and learn what to recycle and what to toss. Dave made that not only easy but a whole lot of fun!"

In her nomination, Gerron described how Holdbrook created colorful displays for the kids, graphic depictions of what items to put where, and how he lowered some of the containers so that even the tiniest students could take part. He involved students as "monitors," helping them buy into the program and multiply his enthusiasm and knowledge. Ultimately, the adults learned from students. One teacher was informed by a kindergarten student, "You know…you can't recycle your Starbucks cup, so make sure it goes into the garbage."

Because this first Green School year has been so effective and fun, Newcastle plans to continue next year and add even more goals to their efforts, and they'll count on Holbrook to generate more excitement. "Dave has gone above and beyond to educate and make recycling cool! We are producing life-long recyclers in the community," noted Gerron.