Garbage Museum Needs You to Help Keep Its Doors Open

Museum Campaigning for $50,000 Pepsi Refresh Project Grant

STRATFORD, Conn. – The CRRA Garbage Museum needs your votes to help save it from closing.

Jaimie McCarvill, a museum educator, entered the Garbage Museum for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh Project grant to help fund the Museum’s environmental education programs, and the grants are awarded based on the results of online voting.

The Garbage Museum, which has taught more than 350,000 people about protecting their environment since 1995, is on the brink of closing due to lack of funding. Anyone interested in saving the Museum can go to www.refresheverything.com/save-the-garbage-museum and vote once a day. Those who register as “power voters” can enter the 10--character alphanumeric codes found on specially-marked Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Max products, and their votes will be multiplied by a random factor of 5 to 100. Votes may also be cast by text-messaging 108024 to Pepsi (73774). The voting period ends Aug. 31. The Museum will be notified the next day if it is a finalist.

The Garbage Museum needs to raise $100,000 before the end of this month in order to keep its doors open for the 2011-12 fiscal year, according to Paul Nonnenmacher, director of public affairs for CRRA. “The Museum’s fundraising efforts are sinking, we are struggling,” said Sotoria Montanari, the Museum’s education supervisor. The Museum has a projected fiscal year budget of $340,000.

The Garbage Museum provides recycling, energy conservation and environmental education to children and adults through Museum tours, in-school programs and exhibits at public events. Museum tours include a skybox view of the adjoined recycling facility.

The CRRA Garbage Museum is located at 1410 Honeyspot Road Extension, Stratford. For more information, call 203-381-9571 or find the Garbage Museum on Facebook. Admission is $3 per person, free for children age 2 and under.

The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority is a quasi-public agency whose mission is to work for – and in – the best interests of the municipalities of the state of Connecticut. CRRA develops and implements environmentally sound solutions and best practices for solid waste disposal and recycling management on behalf of municipalities. CRRA serves 93 Connecticut cities and towns. CRRA also runs sustainability education programs through the Trash Museum in Hartford and Garbage Museum in Stratford. Computer users can also discuss CRRA at its blog.

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