Tolland's Project Graduation Holds First Bottle Drive of the Year

It only takes a few minutes to see that Tolland's Project Graduation has perfected the running of its fundraisers, which have provided 25 years of safe, substance-free graduation parties for Tolland students.

The bottle drive, located in the parking lot in front of Star Hardware, is run like a well-oiled machine, as volunteers seamlessly process, organize and bag the thousands of bottles that residents brought in on Saturday morning.

According to Project Graduation president Dan Fontaine, the group takes in about 250,000 bottles annually, amounting to around $7,000 in funds.

Parents and students helped remove donated bottles from arriving cars. Bottles were swiftly sorted into precisely categorized boxes, which are separated by beverage type and brand name. Once sorted, the cans and bottles are dumped into large bags, where they stay until the trucks arrive to take away the recylables. 

While it's a lot of work, the parents and kids brave the sticky bags and cans for an important cause.

"Our motto is: keeping our graduates safe since 1987," Fontaine said. The group also sells concessions at UConn football and basketball games to raise the $35,000 needed to provide an entertaining and safe graduation party for Tolland High School's seniors.

"It's what we're all about," Fontaine said, who has a son still in the school system. Fontaine explained that the organization, led by a steering committee of parents, does not use taxpayer dollars, and operates on fundraising and donations.

Fontaine said that he expects about $1,500 from Saturday's efforts, a common amount for the bottle drives. However, Hurricane Irene may skew the numbers, since Fontaine suspects residents are dropping off an unusual number of water bottles due to the recent storm.

Project Graduation will be holding bottle drives on November 19, March 31 and June 2. For those interested in volunteering, contact Fontaine at 860-872-6617 or through email at dan.fontaine@gulemo.com.