In response to the recent posting, I'm glad to tell you all that the
Neighborhood Block Leader Program, which we pioneered in 1979, is still
alive and well in Boulder, and now the whole County!
In Boulder, we have nearly 600 BL's, and in Longmont 300+, and in other
small towns (Louisville, Lafayette, Superior, Broomfield) another 100+.
In our 900+ Commercial Recycling accounts, we have our EcoCycle Contacts,
and in the multi-family housing we have our MFU Leaders. All together ,we
figure we have over 2,000 active volunteers, the largest such network in
the area.
Every year we have a big Volunteer Appreciation event and we give out the
EcoCycle "Oscars" (Oscar the Grouch as a mascot). All of this takes a lot
of coordination, and we have three different staff putting in about 40
hours per week on the BL and other volunteer stuff.
I will conclude by saying that the BL program has been essential for
promoting recycling here and would be well worth the time for other
mission-driven local organizations to create them.
I would also like to know how other BL programs are doing. Anybody out
there????
Thanks, Eric Lombardi, Exec. Dir, EcoCycle.
On Sat, 12 Apr 1997 PMSinnott@aol.com wrote:
> In the late seventies and eighties residential block leader programs got a
> lot of press. The idea was that volunteers kept their neighbors up to date
> on the recycling system and oriented new comers. If I remember correctly it
> started in Boulder Co.
>
> Recycling/environmental nuts that keep office programs going are the
> commercial equivalent.
>
> In my opinion it is and was a great idea. I am curious, how are these
> programs doing 20 years later?
>
>
>
>