Employees at PCA’s corporate office in Lake Forest, Illinois, recently started a community outreach program that involves visiting local K–5 schools to talk about what PCA does, how we make our product and ways we take care of the environment.
The visiting employees recreate how paper is made — on a small scale — using pulp and other materials from PCA’s containerboard mill in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. They also lead classroom discussions regarding the everyday use of paper and the types of job opportunities available at a box company.
Students learn about sustainability and recycling of boxes and other paper-based products, and they receive fact sheets about recycling to take home with them. They are also given bright yellow plastic “construction hats” as a reminder of what they learned about the papermaking industry.
Suzi Peters, Senior Account Specialist at PCA, founded the program. “Making paper sounds like fun, and it is! Taking our presentation on the road to schools is a fun and satisfying way to promote PCA and give back to our communities. More importantly, we strive to teach the children about the importance of recycling. We also hope to encourage them to stay in school — perhaps becoming future engineers for our own plants and mills!”
To learn more about other community outreach efforts in which PCA participates, please go to www.packagingcorp.com/community-outreach.