by Ken Quintanilla
Guam - Congratulations are in hand for the St. John's Environmental Recycling Club, who
recently won second place as part of the Hyatt's "Vote. Give. Thrive." campaign. Competing against over
two dozen non-profit organizations worldwide, the club recently won a $5,000
grant as part the Hyatt's initiative.
Club advisor Tim Pearson told KUAM News, "One hundred and
fifty Hyatt hotels around the world and they each nominated a local partner.
We're the local partner for Guam. Out of the
150 submissions, 26 were selected to be finalists and we also submitted a video
demonstrating our works and the winner of the like campaign on Facebook was the
first place and we came in second."
The St. John's
video submission received more than 4,500 votes and shows the club doing what
it does best. "And they came up with the story that we were recycling at
the Hyatt and one of our bottles got loose and we ended chasing it all around
the grounds of the Hyatt until the manager finally caught it for us," said
Pearson.
The club has been recycling the plastic at the Hyatt for a while
and has essentially reduced the school's waste in half. "We're very
active, we're proactive in terms of recycling of aluminum, tin, cardboard,
plastic, glass, paper, newspapers, magazines," said Pearson.
And with a new sports complex and swimming pool added to the
campus, they plan to use the money for good. Pearson added, "So we're
hoping to put in solar panels to help us reduce the cost of electricity, if
that's successful, then we'll look at doing the whole school, which is a big
project."
