Gladys Fortune tries out a bench dedicated to her late husband, Oliver. (CP photo by Sarah Vodgelsong)
Visitors to and residents of Port Royal looking for a place to sit and read will have the opportunity to do both soon, thanks to the enterprising local branch of the Ruritans.
This June, the Port Royal Ruritans donated two benches constructed from over 1 million plastic bags to the town, and later this year they hope to add a third and a Little Free Library—Caroline County’s first—near the playground behind Town Hall.
The idea for the project stemmed from Barbara Wisdom, a Portobago resident and member of the Ruritans who heard from a friend in Poquoson about the “Bags to Benches” program started by the Winchester-based Trex Company. Through the Trex program, community members can drop off plastic bags at various partnering locations, such as Target, and once a certain number has been collected, Trex will turn them into a resilient, long-lasting bench made of 95 percent recycled material.
“It’s a win-win for the community as well as the company, because organizations like the Ruritans and schools…collect the plastic bags, which of course keeps them out of landfills,” said Wisdom, who described herself as “very interested” in environmental projects.
Each bench requires the collection of twenty 33-gallon bags stuffed full of plastic bags, with each weighing about 13.5 pounds.
“It’s a lot of plastic bags,” said Wisdom. All told, it takes her and her husband Boyd about an hour to fill one of the 33-gallon bags “because we’re pushing and smashing and doing everything to get the air out.”
After Wisdom invited a Trex representative to speak at the monthly Ruritan meeting, the group quickly got on board, as did members of the nearby St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, residents of the Portobago neighborhood, and a group fitness class that meets in the town every Thursday.
“The Ruritans started it, but word spread, and there’s a lot of people that want to recycle,” said Wisdom.
Although the benches have not yet been installed—Sylvia Sellers, the publicity director for the Port Royal Ruritans, said that the group was waiting for the installation of security cameras behind Town Hall because of recent vandalism in the area—they are already becoming part of the town. One has already been earmarked to hold a plaque in memory of Oliver Fortune, the long-time chaplain of the local Ruritan chapter who died in January 2014.
Fortune, Wisdom remembered, was a “very, very religious individual, very caring for people. He always wished you the best whenever he saw you or he was saying goodbye.”
The Ruritans previously donated $500 to the Caroline County Little League in Fortune’s memory.
Alongside the benches, the group, spearheaded by Sellers, has been working to bring a Little Free Library to the area. A grassroots-style initiative, Little Free Libraries have sprung up throughout the United States in recent years—but so far, none have appeared in Caroline.
The idea of the libraries is simple: they consist of an elevated wooden box with an unlocked door where people can deposit books of any variety that they want to pass on and pick up any left by others that strike their fancy.
Some communities or individuals design their library in a way that reflects a unique aspect of the group or area; others are more simplistic. The Port Royal library, while not yet erected, was constructed by Ruritan member Helmut LinneVonBerg.
Sellers said that the library has been issued its charter through the central organization that loosely oversees the initiative and is waiting for its formal sign to be delivered through the mail.
If all goes according to plan, the Ruritans hope to have the two benches and the library installed by the end of the summer. The group is also 75 percent of the way toward its goal for the third bench.
Although Wisdom said that the Ruritans plan to take a break until the end of the year after completing that bench, she indicated that they would likely pick up the effort again with the idea of perhaps installing benches on the town’s newly constructed pier.
“We’ve had a good time collecting the bags and talking to people about the idea of recycling,” she said.
Anyone who wishes to participate in the Bags to Benches program can either bring bags to a Ruritan meeting, which is held every third Thursday of the month at the Port Royal Fire Department, or can email Barbara Wisdom at . Acceptable donations include bread or newspaper bags, dry cleaning bags, grocery bags, and paper towel packaging, among others. Hard plastics or bags that have held meat products will not be accepted. For more information, see the Trex Company website at http://www.trex.com/recycling/recycling-programs/.