Summer Community Service Project: Cans for Habitat

By Jennifer Kolarik, Brevard Center Career Coordinator

Throughout the year, Brevard Center students participate in community service opportunities such as local beach clean-ups and special events such as the Habitat for Humanity Annual Strawberry Festival, Autism Awareness Festival, and Walk Now for Autism.

For the summer, our center’s goal was to choose a project that would engage both students and staff and be ongoing throughout the summer. We chose to participate in an aluminum can drive for our local Habitat for Humanity office.

Cans for Habitat began in August of 1997 and is a partnership between The Aluminum Association and Habitat for Humanity International. Money earned from recycling aluminum cans is used to build homes for families in need.

In recent years, the Cans for Habitat program has raised over $15,000 each year for our Melbourne office and nearly $400,000 nationwide.

To make our community service project more fun, we made it a staff vs. student challenge to see who could collect the most cans. It was a close call… but in the end, the students were victorious! Staff collected 28 pounds of cans and the students collected an even more impressive 29 pounds…for a combined total of 57 pounds!

The project was so successful that the Brevard Center has decided to continue being a Cans for Habitat collection site throughout the year. To locate your closest Habitat for Humanity office, go to www.habitat.org and enter your zip code.

Read more about the Cans for Habitat program here

Aluminum Recycling…Did You Know?

Since 1972 Americans have earned over $25 billion by recycling aluminum beverage cans (an equivalent of 16 million tons).
For each pound of metal recycled, the aluminum industry saves the energy resources needed to generate about 7.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Can recycling has created about 30,000 new jobs at recycling centers, aluminum companies and transportation support industries.