Green Week: School-wide cloth napkin-making project

On Monday, all the kids at our elementary school were asked to come to school in grubby clothes. No, they were not auditioning to be orphans in a new production of Annie. They were taking part in a school-wide cloth napkin creation project. Being EnviroMom's Napkin Lady, this was a dream of mine come true. A little background. As an Oregon Green School, we don't just celebrate Earth Day. We have a whole dedicated Green Week. Ours kicked off on Monday with the napkin project.

Every kid in the school got a square of white cotton t-shirt material to decorate with fabric paint. Yes, you guessed it -- we did not buy new material, we reused material from old t-shirts. We also used an ecclectic mix of SCRAP-supplied stampers: plastic forks, spools, assorted caps, egg dippers and cookie cutters pressed into sponges soaked with permanent fabric paint. They also used permanent pens to write their names on the napkins. Prior to getting started, the kids got a talk from a volunteer parent on why it's better to reuse instead of supporting the disposable industry. With reused shirts emblazoned with reused art supply stamps while creating napkins for reuse -- this project had "reuse" written all over it! As much as green parents talk about the importance of reduce and reuse, this project strengthens school spirit around the green movement and our Green School designation, and of course gives the kids a great sense of ownership in being Friends of the Earth who live and breathe reduce/reuse/recycle in their daily lives.

I will confess it took a long time to get 'er done. I had done a parent talk at the school last April on simple changes to go green, which included ideas on packing a waste-free lunch box and using cloth napkins and towels at home in the kitchen instead of throw-away paper products. Then some of our Green Team parents began talking late last summer about a school-wide napkin project. There were discussions on what kind of fabric to use, if sewing would be involved and how to keep the cost low. There were discussions on how to make it fun for the kids, but not too messy and for the color to be bright but not stiff. Ultimately, a stash of T-shirts was donated, parent volunteers were lined up to cut squares, and testing was done on fabric paint. For the day of, lead parents went into each classroom with two extra parent helpers to guide kids thorough the project and explain the importance of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. Heather and I were able to help the first classes, kindergarten, with their napkins in the morning. Then the project, parents, napkins and paint moved like a green wave throughout the school's many classrooms over the one day.

I can't properly express how fun and inspiring this was! I had one little kinder tell me how much she liked the project after we had finished. To be honest, I was surprised how cute the napkins looked (having seen my kids go way overboard with paint on many at-home projects -- to have the finished work turn into a brownish blob). Now, I can't wait to visit the cafeteria for lunch and have a gym full of kids whip out their cloth napkins and wipe their grubby little pb & jelly smudged faces! Yay!! Let's hear it for cloth napkins!!

Let me also add that the whole project cost less than $30 to create over 300 napkins for all the kids at our school. The fabric paint was the largest expense, but we used less than expected. Parents, kids, teachers and the principal agreed it was a fun and successful project.

Is your school next to take on the school-wide cloth napkin project?