Tompkinsville Elementary leads city’s Spring Cleanup
July 1, 2014 by clackey
Tompkinsville Elementary School teacher Dana Hammer accepted the PRIDE Volunteer of the Month Award. Congratulating her were (left to right) Mike Turner, Cecilia Stephens (Monroe County Board of Education), Mayor Jeff Proffitt, Bob Geer (Monroe County Tourism) and Neva Lou Reagan (Tompkinsville PRIDE Coordinator).
Dana Hammer, a teacher at Tompkinsville Elementary School, has been honored as an outstanding volunteer in southern and eastern Kentucky.
She received the PRIDE Volunteer of the Month Award for leading the TES PRIDE Club to spearhead the Tompkinsville Spring Cleanup Day on April 26, 2014. CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS.
PRIDE Club members explore nature, practice good stewardship and perform community service. Hammer, who sponsors the PRIDE Club, saw an opportunity for the students to help the environment and community when grant funds were not available to pay for the city’s annual Spring Cleanup Day this year.
The PRIDE Club members stepped up to organize Spring Cleanup Day. They collected donations to provide the cleanup supplies and door prizes for volunteers. Attorney Richard Jackson came on board as the corporate sponsor. At the cleanup, PRIDE Club members registered volunteers and handed out supplies, as well as picked up litter themselves.
Thanks to Hammer and her students, the Spring Cleanup Day was a success. Thirty-one volunteers filled 45 trash bags with the litter that they picked up along the city streets.
“Ms. Hammer is a hardworking, dedicated teacher whose impact is felt far beyond her classroom,” said PRIDE’s Jennifer Johnson, who surprised Hammer with the award at a meeting in Mayor Jeff Proffitt’s office. “She goes above and beyond the norm because of her care and compassion for her students, community and environment.”
“PRIDE thanks Ms. Hammer and the students who led Spring Cleanup Day, as well as the volunteers and donors who participated,” Johnson added. “We thank Mayor Proffitt and the City of Tompkinsville for covering the trash disposal cost.”
“Dana has always been a great volunteer,” Mayor Proffitt said. “She helps every year with our Spring Cleanup Day. She promotes it in the community. She motivates her students to volunteer, and they are so excited to participate. Her students and their parents usually make up a big part of the volunteers.”
“Dana is a remarkable person,” said Neva Lou Reagan, the city’s PRIDE Coordinator, who nominated Hammer for the PRIDE award. “She takes pride in her city and her school. She enjoys working with the children and is so good with them. She has said many times, ‘I want to teach my children responsibility.’”
Hammer has brought $13,000 to the school through the PRIDE Environmental Education Grant Program since 2009. The PRIDE funds were used for a green house, Earth Day materials, books, environmental resources, animal habitat, energy conservation projects and a school-wide recycling program. This past year, the school recycled 322 pounds of paper, 77 pounds of aluminum cans, 20 pounds of plastic and 15 pounds of glass.
The PRIDE Volunteer of the Month program recognizes hard work and dedication to the PRIDE initiative, which promotes environmental education and cleanup efforts in a 42-county region. With corporate sponsorship from TECO Coal, WYMT-TV airs commercials about each PRIDE Volunteer of the Month.
Photos of Tompkinsville Spring Cleanup Day can be seen at www.facebook.com/EasternKentuckyPRIDE.
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