By Maria Van Harten

RATTLE, RATTLE. Clink, clink.

That’s the sound of a seniors’ retirement community pooling their return-for-refund containers and sending the money off to a worthy cause.

Residents of Elim, a retirement village in Surrey, bring their returnable items to specially marked bins strategically placed throughout the village. The manager of the project, 84 year old Ann Van Harten, makes a daily collection round, takes the bottles and cans to the mini bottle depot in one of the buildings and then sorts and counts the items before taking them to the community bottle depot. Via her church, she sends all the money she receives to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank – a Christian Response to World Hunger. These donations are then multiplied because the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) matches every donation four to one.

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Ann started the return-for-refund program when she was among the first group of residents to move to Elim Village in 2001. Her personal zeal soon became a community passion, and as Elim grew, not only residents but also many staff, friends and families also started donating their returnable items. Over the last ten years, Ann has sorted over 164,000 sticky bottles and cans and donated over $14,000 to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

“Everyone tells me it’s time to retire,” says Ann, “but it gives me exercise.”

However, her passion runs deeper than that. The motivating factors are clear: Everyone can participate by donating their items, so the project builds a sense of community. It keeps the environment clean. And, on a bigger scale, it looks beyond the village borders to address the wider issue of global hunger.

This project shows that when a community pools its resources, even dimes and nickels can make a significant impact in the world.

January 2011