Customer Highlight: SCARCE
SCARCE just celebrated their 25th anniversary! Let's find out more about this inspirational organization!
SCARCE is a not-for-profit environmental education and action organization. The title stands for: School & Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education. SCARCE also has a powerful meaning as clean water is SCARCE for many people in the world, clean air is SCARCE for many people in the world and books are SCARCE for children locally as well as around the world.
Kay McKeen is the Founder and Executive Director of SCARCE. Kay grew up not wasting as she lived with her grandmothers who knew ways to reuse everything. They didn’t call it recycling, they just didn’t waste. Kay started SCARCE after working with others to build Wheaton's Recycling Drop Off Center. She realized many residents didn't know anything about recycling. So she started visiting schools, community organizations, businesses and churches to promote awareness. She also kept hearing from schools that they had lots of books stored, but didn't have a lot of room. They didn’t want to throw the books out, but had no place for them to go. At the same time she talked to teachers who needed books, both storybooks and textbooks. Kay developed Book Rescue to "rescue" books and get them to children and teachers in need. SCARCE has approximately 80,000 books at any one time! Teachers come every day to choose books and other items for their students. Together they have chosen more than 5 million books.
Super Crayons is yet another one of SCARCE's many projects. Broken crayons are melted down and poured into molds for use by kids with special needs. These crayons are made mostly by high school and college students as well as companies that send their staff to volunteer their time. All of these crayons are given to children in schools, hospitals, and special needs organizations who are autistic or emotionally compromised.
SCARCE also provides educational programs like Food Scrap Composting education. They have hosted seminars and conferences around the state to get the topic moving forward. They work with schools, hospitals, hotels and restaurants to implement collection projects as well as encourage families to compost at home. SCARCE continues to put together workshops and education programs. They feel rescuing the water, nutrients and mass in food is critical to the future.
If you would like to get involved with this amazing organization you can volunteer, collect crayons, books and more. Check out their “Get Involved” page to see how you can help! There is also the Green Tie Gala, October 23rd at the Westin Hotel in Lombard. SCARCE is hoping people will attend, help with auction items and help get the word out.
“Every action you take to help the environment - no matter how small adds up - and those actions make ripples that will lead and encourage others to help make small changes in their homes and businesses and those will add up!” ~Kay McKeen