Earth can be sustained through recycling. That was the message Alcoa's Warrick Operations employees wanted to get across to local sixth graders last week during a visit to several Warrick County schools.

"Alcoa has a global goal to raise North American recycling rates by 75 percent," said Jim Beck, Communications and Public Affairs Leader for Alcoa's Warrick Operations. "So, letting these kids know about the benefits of recycling will help us reach that overall goal of raising the recycling rates."

The visit was one of many events scheduled throughout the month of October, dubbed the company's Worldwide Month of Service.

"Alcoa employees, we want to be able to volunteer year-round, and we do," said Beck. "And what we've done as a corporation, we've set aside the month of October to highlight volunteer service. And we do that by organizing events, not just here at Warrick Operations, but globally."

Ten projects have already been completed - from landscaping to painting to preparing food at nonprofit events - and five more are planned through the end of the month. Organizations in Warrick and Vanderburgh counties have benefitted from the generosity.

"We sent out a proposal to ask all of the nonprofit organizations to give us some ideas about what kind of needs they had and we had to go through that," said Beck. "Obviously, we had more needs than we had days in the month. So, unfortunately, we had to just not do some... (There were) just a lot of good projects out there and people have just been so appreciative of the work that Alcoa's done."

Kelly Mitchell, CEO of Southern Indiana Resource Solutions (SIRS) in Boonville, agreed. After a service project at her organization was completed, Mitchell said she wanted to make sure the community realized what a "good corporate citizen" Alcoa is.

"Too often good deeds go unnoticed," she said. "Eleven volunteers from Alcoa's Warrick Operations worked nonstop for four hours on Friday, Oct. 2 to paint several rooms at SIRS' facility on Folsomville Road in Boonville. The financial value of these services is significant and the impact of the community support of our organization and those we serve is priceless."

Check out the October 22nd edition of The Newburgh Register or The Boonville Standard for a list of other projects.