Leonard Clearwater
Leonard has been a resident of Garden Way Retirement for two years now. Besides bringing along his charming ways, he has also brought along his newspaper collecting. For as long as Garden Way residents and staff could remember Leonard was always collecting newspapers. When asked by fellow residents why he collected newspapers, Leonard would reply, “I collect them for the schools.” More recently, the Community came to find out exactly what an amazing effort Leonard has made to help both local school children and the earth.
Leonard has been part of the Cascade Barbershop Quartet since 1966, over 45 years now. One of the gentlemen from the group came up with the idea to recycle newspapers. With this idea in play they also decided to use the money they received from recycling to help fund the Cascade Barbershop Quartet and to help out with the music programs in Lane County schools.
Residents and most staff know what Friday’s mean, collection day. Friday is the day Leonard’s friends Margaret and Jim help out collecting the newspapers throughout Garden Way community. Besides newspapers they will also collect junk mail, magazines and cans. Residents have also been collecting all of their newspapers and random junk mail for Leonard. They either deliver these recyclables to Leonard’s apartment or have it ready for Leonard to pick up on Friday’s. In fact Leonard has been collecting so much extra from everyone that Margaret and he started collecting on a daily basis and sometimes even twice in one day.
Leonard and his team realized that over a seven year period they had collected over 39,000 dollars! That money was divided up between the Barbershop quartet and the schools in Lane County. There are 114 public schools in the Lane County which equals out to being 44,603 children. When you think of that it’s amazing to know the Cascade Barbershop Quartet gentlemen have helped all of these children. Besides them helping out the children with funds for music programs and putting on concerts to help encourage children to participate in music they help keep the paper out of the landfills; this paper includes phone books, newspapers, junk mail and random scrap paper. According to Leonard, “It gives me a wonderful accomplishment feeling to know how much I am helping out, I help the music programs in our local school, keep the paper out of landfills and help with keep more trees alive.”
The Cascade Barbershop Quartet has started a remarkable program that they intend to keep running. We could all do a part and help Leonard with the schools, keeping the landfills cleared of extra paper debris and help keeping more trees planted in the ground and not in a mill.
*This blog was first published here: Sunshine Retirement Living
