With the holiday season over, students can donate their old Christmas cards and other greeting cards to a beneficial cause.

Organized by the recycling department, this program provides greeting cards to students at Dale Roy and D-R services. They can use these cards while creating bows, gift tags and other crafts. The cards also may serve as scrapbook page decorations.

Although the recycling department receives a large amount of donations after the holiday season, they accept cards throughout the year. Besides Christmas cards, additional cards that students bring in include birthday, anniversary and sympathy cards.

Last semester, students donated 3,504 greeting cards. As of Jan. 20, the recycling department has received 2,485 cards. To donate their greeting cards, students can drop them off using the inter-office mail system for the recycling department.

The process of collecting greeting cards began in 2003. Initially, the cards were donated to St. Jude’s but their program soon ended. As a result, the cards were then distributed to the senior center. With the high volume of cards, the recycling department found another source of donations for Dale Roy.

In addition to providing supplies for Dale Roy students, recycling the greeting cards also holds environmental benefits. Donating cards for reuse is one small step that allows students to help the environment.

“We are helping DR Services and are preventing the cards from entering the landfill,” Recycling Coordinator and Green Team Co-leader Maureen Heacock said.

Each December, AU students sell the items that the Dale Roy students created using the cards. This sale has been conducted over the last three years.

Besides collecting greeting cards for Dale Roy, the recycling department along with Community Care’s Green Team will be hosting Green Week. This annual event will begin on April 16 and end on April 21.