SCARCE founder teaches the importance of recycling

Editor’s note: The following article originally was published on July 18, 2007 when the Daily Herald named Kay McKeen one of DuPage County’s 10 Most Influential Environmentalists.

By Hafsa Naz Mahmood

hmahmood@@dailyherald.com

When Kay McKeen was growing up, her family frequently spent vacations at campgrounds or beaches.

Among the rules they lived by: Never leave without cleaning up on your way out.

“We’d go camping, and by the time we left the campground, it was cleaner than it had been in years,” the 56-year-old Wheaton resident said. “If you’d take a walk on the beach, you had to clean the beach because you enjoyed it.”

The lessons were clear and consistent: You don’t throw garbage out car windows. You don’t waste water. You always turn off the lights.

“I had parents who cared about the environment long before it was cool,” she said. “It was just respect and responsibility, and it just carried on.”

Those childhood lessons took hold, and for the past three decades McKeen has been at the forefront of environmental efforts in DuPage County and beyond.

As founder and president of School and Community Assistance for Recycling & Composting Education, or SCARCE, she’s spearheaded hundreds of interactive projects. The results have helped people here and abroad, and educated generations of teachers, students and residents

McKeen, who was born in Cicero and has lived mostly in Wheaton since she was 8, has been a member of the Wheaton Environmental Improvement Commission for about 25 years.

In the late 1980s, she led an effort to design and build the Wheaton Recycling Center, which many communities still use as a model for their own facilities.

She also received countless honors, including the Outstanding School Recycling and Reduction Education Program Award in 1993 from the Illinois Recycling Association, and The Governor’s Pollution Prevention Award in 1996.

Jean Mooring, who serves on the Illinois Prairie Path board of directors, says McKeen taught people to live more gently on the Earth, and her message continues to resonate.

“She’s the county’s expert on recycling,” Mooring said. “People of all ages are becoming more enthusiastic about recycling and conservation as a result of her efforts.”

For those efforts and more, McKeen has earned a spot among the most influential environmentalists in DuPage County history.

McKeen’s brainchild

McKeen was doing volunteer work for the Wheaton Environmental Improvement Commission in the late 1980s when she began noticing a need for education about the environment.

She started a group called SCRAP in 1990. Three years later it went through a name change and emerged as SCARCE, an organization that teaches people to preserve and care for the Earth’s natural resources through workshops and specific programs.

Initially, most people were very accepting of McKeen’s projects and teachings, although some questioned composting. After additional education, people began to embrace the ideas as common-sense solutions.

Today, the nonprofit organization encourages people to “Think Globally, Act Locally,” and works to benefit people both nationally and internationally. While some students are affected immediately by newly gained knowledge, others benefit from different projects over time, she said.

DuPage County funds SCARCE’s educational programs with tax money, while donations support the organization’s day-to-day recycling activities.

“SCARCE just kind of grew and grew,” McKeen said. “It started because people just didn’t know (about protecting the environment). People thought recycling was just about garbage, but it’s really about conserving natural resources.”

While touring schools and facilities to stress conservation, McKeen brainstormed and implemented hundreds of outreach projects that continue today.

Some projects began before SCARCE was created; others have taken shape over the past 17 years.

Take, for example, the Earth Flag Program. The group created it to reward schools that take steps to carry out environmental education and waste-reduction activities.

Since its inception, 288 of the 320 schools in DuPage have received at least one flag and more than 130 have earned a second as part of the Earth Flag Re-Certification Program.

The effort has been so successful that several states have adopted it as their own.

Reality hits home

At its heart, the program remains a grass-roots effort to teach students some of the lessons McKeen learned from her parents.

Roselle Middle School, for instance, recertified its Earth Flag — made of recycled pop bottles — in May after participating in a Tap and Stack program. Students were encouraged to tap off the garbage from their Styrofoam lunch plates and recycle the dishes.

Principal Kathy Schneiter said the program reduced the school’s lunchtime garbage from nine bags each day to just two.

The school also participated in a handful of other SCARCE activities, including the energy bike, which serves as a physical and visual way for people to learn how much energy it takes to light a bulb as they pedal away.

“I think the projects impact us in a positive way because they bring energy conservation and recycling to the front burner,” Schneiter said.

“Everybody’s thinking about them and making more of an effort. The more focused the kids are, the more focused the parents get.”

Now kids know 75,000 recycled gym shoes are used to make rubber soil that holds together artificial turf in a soccer field, and that florescent bulbs conserve more energy than standard ones.

“It’s exciting for the kids because they’re seeing how real it is for somebody versus something they just hear about or see on TV,” Schneiter said.

‘Tireless individual’

The group’s other efforts include Rescue Programs, in which residents and schools are encouraged to donate crayons, cellphones, ink jet cartridges, gym shoes and school supplies.

McKeen and dozens of others sort through the products. Those in good condition are donated to people in need; those in bad shape are recycled.

Eventually, such efforts result in the creation of rubber running tracks for schools, reusable books and giant, Super Crayons for kids with disabilities.

“Being such a wealthy county, a lot of the time kids throw things out instead of taking them home,” McKeen said.

The Book Rescue program, also spearheaded by McKeen, has distributed more than 2 million books to eager readers worldwide.

“Sometimes you think, Ghana, Africa?” she said. “It’s kind of overwhelming at times, but I rarely get to think about that. We’re always in the business of teaching and reaching as many people as we can.”

McKeen also has helped organize recycling extravaganzas throughout the county, and now Glen Ellyn, Lombard, Naperville, Wheaton, Westmont and Oswego all host such events.

Glen Ellyn Acting Village Manager Curt Barrett says McKeen brings a new idea to the table each year to improve and expand the village’s event.

“Certainly, she’s been a top-shelf advocate and leader in keeping, sustaining and growing the events,” Barrett said.

“She’s an educator in that field, so she’s passionate about it, really focused on it, and brings a lot of expertise and knowledge of new things that are happening.”

McKeen’s sixth-grade sweetheart, Greg McKeen, says Kay’s passions grew on him.

“It’s hard not to get excited about the environment when you’re around Kay,” he said. “It’s because of her spirit, enthusiasm and her belief in what she’s doing that it’s so easy to want to help.”

He’s noticed his wife of 36 years never plans before she speaks.

“She knows so much that when she does a seminar, she never uses note cards,” Greg said. “She’s a tireless individual.”

Regardless of how many people her efforts have reached, Kay McKeen carefully dodges taking credit.

“This job has been amazing in that you start with one person, then you get more people involved, and lots of people pitch in,” she said. “All of our team puts in 100 percent. It wouldn’t work if we didn’t have donations, volunteers or teachers who extended themselves.”

Still, it seems McKeen herself never stops.

“When she’s not working with us,” Barrett said, “she’s on to the next town.”

Educator at heart

McKeen’s interest in the environment was sparked by her parents, but it grew even hotter when she became a mom.

Her daughter, Beverly, now 35, was only 3 when doctors discovered she needed open-heart surgery. They had no explanation for what had gone wrong with Beverly’s heart, no easy answers for her mother.

The surgery made McKeen, who didn’t smoke or drink, even more aware of environmental issues that may have contributed to her daughter’s condition.

Each new discovery stoked her desire to solve possible threats to the environment and to us all.

“It wasn’t enough to just work at home,” she said. “You needed to help be a part of the bigger solution.”

Education, she discovered, was her most valuable tool.

“Everything can get better with knowledge, and if you learn about something, you’ll learn to protect it and you’ll learn to be a good steward,” McKeen said.

“I don’t think you could do this work if you didn’t care about two things: kids and the environment.”

Mooring appreciates that ambition and marvels at what McKeen has accomplished over the past few decades.

“I think she’s just an admirable person,” Mooring said. “She’s so enthusiastic, and people just love her because she’s so much fun.”

McKeen traces a touch of her passion to John F. Kennedy, who was president when she was in middle school. She remembers the charismatic leader challenging the country’s population to give something back.

“I think people should not forget how fortunate we are around here,” she said. “You don’t want to leave the planet in a negative.”