Recycling bottles and cans can earn you dollars and cents!
Recently, MarQes, a student attending a 2020 Ambassador Leadership Summit at Harvard University, submitted a bottle drive idea to us, and we love it! This fundraiser allows your friends, family and community to help you achieve your Summit fundraising goals without dipping into their bank accounts. Each can or bottle earns you five to ten cents depending on your home state.
Note: Ten states currently have recycling programs offering to repay container deposits: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont.
This fundraiser is simple and effective, so we’re not surprised a young entrepreneur like MarQes came up with it! Start by making a flyer announcing your bottle and can drive. Each state varies slightly in how they execute their recycling programs, so do your homework to make sure you accurately inform everyone of how to participate. Then post an announcement and your flyer on social media and email it out to everyone you know.
Ask people to collect all qualifying bottles and cans. Offer to pick up their collections once a month or set up a time for people to drop off the bottles and cans at your house.
Let participants know that they can also visit a recycling center themselves and donate their rebate voucher or the money they received to your Summit.
You can also consider reaching out to local businesses, community centers and schools to see if they’ll participate in your bottle and can drive. This is a great way to spread the word for your fundraiser and increase your earning exponentially. The wonderful byproduct, of course, is that you’re also keep these items out of the trash bins.
Check out the Facebook fundraiser MarQes set up with a short video announcing his bottle drive and encouraging people to donate. This, too, is an effective way of sharing your fundraiser and inviting other people to boost the signal to their own network of Facebook friends.
What are you waiting for? Access your inner entrepreneur and start your own bottle drive today. Thank you to MarQes for sharing this excellent fundraiser with us!
Are you a superstar fundraiser? Email your ideas to info@ambassadorleaders.com. You could be featured in our Toolkit!
By Corie Bales
Corie is the Academic Affairs Manager of Ambassador Leaders. As a lifelong educator and avid traveler, she believes in empowering students and teachers to learn and lead through experiential education.