Mason County’s annual Independence Day Parade always provides a unique opportunity to further the AFFEW mission of informing and involving the community in local environmental protection efforts. Led by Board Chair Sidney Shaw and Member Heidi Moloney, AFFEW created a new float for this year’s parade and launched AFFEW’s new Adopt-A-Bucket campaign to solicit donations that will spread battery recycling beyond the seven locations already served by AFFEW’s efforts and funding.

Thousands of parade-goers watched as ten AFFEW members “biked” the float and pushed two giant battery mock-ups and two baby strollers with donation buckets down Ludington Avenue. AFFEW encouraged viewers to donate $55.00 to underwrite the cost of recycling the contents of a 10-gallon bucket, which would be placed at a location of their choosing – thus motivating area residents and visitors to recycle even more household batteries and keep them out of landfills.

Thanks to the generosity of AFFEW grant organizations like the Mason County Community Foundation and Dow Chemical, AFFEW has provided 7 drop-off buckets for household battery recycling throughout the past year.

Existing recycling buckets can be found at the Ludington and Scottville libraries, West Shore Community College, Evergreen and Briggs Hardware, Mason County Central Middle School, the United Methodist Church and Peoples’ Church.

The supplementary sponsorship campaign was started because of the many requests which have come in for additional locations beyond what grant funds can support. We have received contributions from five new sponsors, including

Ludington Peoples’ Church, Ludington Garden Club, Bonnie Pfefferle, Marsha and Ron Maluchnik, Barb Sytsma, and Kathryn and David Spitler.

AFFEW also gratefully acknowledges the generous efforts of Lynne and Larry Gaylord, and Deb and Fred Cooper in helping us to create the new July 4th float.