Matt Edgerton's 'Green Team' Wins SEIU Contest for Improving Public Service
Marysville Custodian's Idea: Unite School Community to Find an Environmental Replacement for Disposable Lunch Trays
SEIU Local 925 member Matt Edgerton, a custodian in the Marysville School District, has won first place in SEIU's contest for improving public service. The first place win was announced June 1 at the union's convention in Puerto Rico.
Edgerton won for his idea of uniting the school community to replace some or all of the nearly million Styrofoam trays the Marysville school district uses each year with more environmentally friendly alternatives. His idea would engage students, school priicipals, parents, teachers and maintenance managers in making changes.
The contest awards $5,000 to Edgerton, and $20,000 to SEIU Local 925 to help implement his idea. Edgerton first presented his idea to delegates to the Local 925 Leadership Assembly in February.
Read more about the
contest and the SEIU initiative on
quality public services.
Here's Matt Edgerton's winning essay:
The Green Team
In the community where I live and work, our secondary schools serve students lunch on Styrofoam trays (roughly 900,000 per school year). The vision I have for
remedying this problem begins with one of our secondary schools, which
uses about 180,000 Styrofoam trays per school year, and replaces those
trays with something more environmentally friendly.
Building
custodians and kitchen workers (SEIU members) will schedule a meeting
with the principal to discuss the process of getting students engaged
in replacing the Styrofoam trays.
We will meet with the maintenance manager to help estimate the cost of dumpster pickups of 180,000 Styrofoam trays.
We will attend the building’s PTA. meeting and engage parents in the process.
We
will advertise (signs in halls/intercom announcement) and meet with
students and the principal to discuss the problem and plan of action.
We
will meet with the managers of food services and student leadership,
and help the students articulate the problem and solution and plan a
proposal to the district’s administration and board.
Have SEIU
members, principal, food service manager, maintenance manager, a PTA
representative, and a student present the plan to district
administration and board. Make sure every representative who
participates in the proposal has a talking point at the presentation.
Make sure the presentation begins and ends with talking points by SEIU
members. Discuss the possibility of expanding this program to the
district's other schools.
This plan will be popular, of low
cost to implement, and can be easily reproduced. It would also give
SEIU members opportunities to chair meetings and organize the whole
community.
--Matt Edgerton