What if you can combine recycling and charitable work together? Recycling Lives is not simply a solution for utilizing wasted glass but a great solution for people who are desperate to find employment. Our guest speaker, Sal Moretti, had an opportunity to share with present Rotarians his vision for Bakersfield. Recycling Lives is a unique new non-profit determined to break the cycle of despair for the homeless, disadvantaged, and recently incarcerated. The centerpiece of what Recycling Llives does is using a glass pulverizer to create new products: recycled glass landscape mulch and glass sand. By creating a local glass industry, it creates a local glass recycling demand.
This endeavor has already proven itself by employing people in collecting garbage along our streets bringing 400+ people out of homelessness, generated $1.1 million in housing subsidies, and offering cleaner highways. Partnering with our local Rescue Mission and other local outfits, like Adopt a Highway, Recycling Llives puts people to work. It does not end here. Those who wish to make a career move can attend classes to acquire new skills, like welding and forklift operation, in order to increase their chances of finding a regular stable job.
This amazing venture requires resourceful people just like Sal Moretti and his new board which enlists two North Bakersfield Rotarians: Jacob Panero and Jenifer Pitcher and other people serving above self!