Its Clean-Up Time, Boys and Girls!

Sing it with me! ""Clean up! Clean up! Everybody, everywhere! Clean up! clean up! Everybody do your share!"

There. Now that the tone is set, let's talk trash recycling...

So the holidays came and went and, if your home is anything like mine, the holidays left a real mess behind! Want to know how to get rid of your Christmas tree, gift boxes, outdated electronics, unwanted playthings, wrapping paper, holiday cards and more in an Earth and community-friendly way? Well, here you go!

• The Students Against Violating the Earth (SAVE) organization from Souderton Area High School will hold their annual Community Christmas Tree and Cardboard Recycling Program from 9am to 3pm at Franconia Township Park on Allentown Road this Saturday and Sunday. Drop off trees, cardboard and gift boxes for recycling.
  
  
• Recycling Drive to Benefit Inglewood Elementary School this Saturday at 1313 Allentown Road, Lansdale. Get rid of post-holiday clutter while helping a local school raise money!
  
  Items that can be recycled include:  wrapping paper, magazines, newspapers, catalogs, folders, TV Guides, envelopes, calendars, paperback books, construction paper, junk mail, weekly circulars, spiral notebooks, cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, video cameras, MP3 players, GPS devices, radar detectors, e-book readers, inkjet cartridges, gold/silver/platinum jewelry.
  
  Please no phone books, costume jewelry, cardboard, toner cartridges, cell phone chargers, tissue paper, cereal boxes, hard cover books.
  
  
• Send your old holiday cards to The St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. The kids there will cut the fronts off of the old cards and affix new backs, creating new cards! The cards can be purchased on their website.  “For more than 40 years, St. Jude’s Ranch for Children has provided a safe, nurturing home and therapeutic residential treatment services to more than 1,000 children in Nevada and Texas. St. Jude’s Ranch is making a difference by creating new lives with new skills for abused, abandoned and neglected children of all races and faiths.”
  Remember them on birthdays and other occasions this year, as well, because St. Jude’s Ranch is now accepting used, all-occasion cards year round!
  
  You can mail your donations to:
  St. Jude’s Ranch for Children
  Recycled Card Program
  100 St. Jude’s Street – Boulder City, NV 89005
  877-977-SJRC (7572)
  Thank you to MamaCheaps.com for this info!
  
  
• Recycle Nearly Anything with Freecycle! I've mentioned Freecycle.org previously and what a great group of people are a part of our local, Lansdale area Freecycle group. But, this seems like a perfect time to mention it in further detail. Whether you need to purge some items from your home, or you're looking for something special that you can't seem to find anywhere (I once posted a "Wanted" ad for a Happy Meal Toy to complete our set of Alvin and The Chipmunks. Theodore was missing. Lucky for my then 3-year-old, we found him!  We only had to stop by the giver's mailbox in Harleysville to pick him up!), Freecycle is a wonderful, environmentally-friendly, community-building virtual neighborhood of goodness! Or, to see how they would explain it themselves, just visit the Lansdale Area Freecycle message board on Yahoo! where all of the offers and requests are posted. You just never know what odd item will make someone's day. Be it a chipmunk toy, children's clothing, a bicycle, or soon-to-expire movie tickets (I posted those once!), its well worth checking out! You'll need a Yahoo! account (free!) to login.
  
  
• Finally, just a short reminder list of some wonderful, wonderful places in town that are always looking for donations:
• Manna on Main Street - did you over-buy on food for the holidays? Non-perishable AND perishable food accepted.
• Impact Thrift - free pick-up of large or heavy items!
  
  Know of others? Please share! Email North Penn Under Ten or post a comment below.