Mass cardboardectomies: Trimming postage and preserving resources in New Mexico
05/12/2010
Clip a Box Tops coupon. Insert your fingernail between the printed coupon and its cardboard backing. Separate the two, discarding the cardboard.
Repeat 78,000 times.
That’s what the Coordinator of the McCurdy School in Espanola, N.M., asked of her volunteer assistants. Which they did, helping ensure that they’d minimize the postage on the stacks of Box Tops that generated more than $7,800 for the school.
The Coordinator, Vickie L., works for the school, funded with help of the United Methodist Church and church members from across the U.S. and Canada. McCurdy is located in one of the most economically deprived sections of New Mexico, drawing youths from as many as 100 miles away to get an education that typically has a 100% college placement of its graduating classes. Most of the nearly 300 students receive financial assistance to cover tuition.
So the school relies on volunteers from all over to operate, including a group assigned to clip Box Tops. “It’s a lot of old-fashioned elbow grease,” Vickie says of her program. But with the help, the school has bought playground equipment, essential school supplies, prizes for science contests, even new carpeting. The program has ramped up quickly, collecting only $500 in 2002, its first year, to an expected $10,000 or more for the 2009-10 school year.
Not all of the volunteers were eager to spend their time separating coupon from cardboard; one woman offered to cover the cost of the extra postage out of her own pocket. But the school wouldn’t accept the offer—getting the most out of every resource is essential for a program with ambitious goals and limited means. Says Vickie, “When you have to be good stewards of what you have, every little bit helps.”