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SIERRA VISTA — Maybe you were one of the people approached by Lori Kovash or Clara Billock at Fry’s grocery store Thursday afternoon.
They were the two women giving away Fry’s reusable grocery bags.
Donning a shirt with “We’re in this Together” splashed across the front, along with an image of the earth, Kovash says, “I was green long before being green was cool.”
For a number of years now, Kovash has been making her own reusable bags and bringing them to grocery stores. She keeps them in her car so she won’t forget them when she goes shopping.
 Members of the Buena High School Interact Club help make bracelets that are sold by the Friends of Change. The funds earned are used to purchase reusable grocery bags. Courtesy of Lori Kovash |
“This is my personal community service project that I started to help the environment,” Kovash said.
“The reusable bags are one dollar each, and it’s worth it to me to purchase them and give them away. I want to do everything I can to get people to stop using plastic.”
Kovash raised the money for the bags by making and selling beaded bracelets. She and Billock make the bracelets together and sell them for $5 each.
All money generated through the bracelets goes toward purchasing more bags.
As customers passed through Fry’s checkout lines, Kovash and Billock gave them one of the bags, along with a flier about plastic’s negative impact on the environment. Unlike plastic, the reusable bags are bio-degradable.
Calling her campaign “Friends for Change,” Kovash said, “This is my passion. I’m starting out at Fry’s, but I’m going to be giving bags away at Food City, Safeway, Ace Hardware and Wal-Mart, as well.”
It took the women about 30 minutes to give away all the bags they had purchased at Fry’s. And their efforts were well received by the customers.
“The people I’ve spoken to are thrilled that we’re doing this,” Billock said. “The reaction was all positive.”
When approached by Kovash, Whetstone resident Patti Schultz agreed with the project, stating that more people need to be using the bags.
“I have to retrain myself,” Schultz added as she loaded groceries into her new Fry’s bag. “I already have several of these at home, and I forget to bring them with me. I need to put them back in my car as soon as I unload groceries and start using them.”
Glancing down at her grocery cart, Hereford resident Jan Bowie had words of praise for Kovash and Billock.
“What a really neat thing they’re doing,” Bowie said. “I really believe in recycling, so I’ll be using this over and over. And it’s always wonderful to get something free. I shop at Fry’s all the time, so this is perfect.”
Connie Trotter, a Hereford resident who recently moved here from Alaska, said, “What a pleasant surprise to get something free. We constantly think about the environment and all the little things we can do to protect it. The reusable bags are certainly the environmentally correct thing to do.”
Kovash and Billock expect to be making the rounds at other grocery stores, handing out reusable bags and reminding residents about the importance of making environmentally good choices.
“By doing little things one step at a time, people can retrain themselves,” Kovash said. “All the little things add up and make a big difference.”
Herald/Review reporter Dana Cole can be reached at 515-4618 or by e-mail at dana.cole@svherald.com.
Plastic bag information
The following information has been taken from the flier that Lori Kovash and Clara Billock are including with the free, reusable grocery bags:
• More than a billion single-use plastic bags are given away every day. The production of plastic requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers. The toxic chemical ingredients needed to make plastic products produces pollution during the manufacturing process.
• The annual cost of plastic products to retailers alone is estimated at $4 billion. When retailers give away free bags, their costs are passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade. As litter, they break down into tiny bits, contaminating our soil and water.
• Plastic bags cause more than 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when these animals mistake them for food.
• Each high-quality reusable bag you use can eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime. The bag will pay for itself if your grocery store offers a 5-cent or 10-cent credit per bag for bringing your own bags with you when you go grocery shopping.
For information about the bracelets, e-mail Lori Kovash at llkovash@yahoo.com or call 459-0381.
to the big one wrote on Sep 7, 2008 3:24 AM: