Roses to several local Harris Teeter Supermarkets, especially the Harris Teeter supermarket at University Mall, for working with the Community Involvement Committee at St. Thomas More Catholic Church to collect food donations for the Inter-Faith Council Food Pantry.

Harris Teeter supermarkets have donated hundreds of grocery bags to be used by those donating food.

These grocery bags are being given to St. Thomas More parishioners once a month. Each bag has a list of food items needed at the Food Pantry.

The parishioners fill up the bags with the food items listed, return the filled bags to the church, and the grocery bags are taken after Sunday masses to the Food Pantry.

As a result of these donations, the IFC reports that food donations have increased more than 33 percent since this program began.

This successful food donation program would not be possible without Harris Teeter generously donating the grocery bags.

 

Roses to the thousands of hardy souls who refused to let a historic heat wave frighten them away from the 2012 Festival for the Eno.

Despite a steamy blanket of 100-degree-plus days, festival-goers showed up in good numbers at the three-day celebration at West Point on the Eno.

They did what they’ve been doing for the past 33 years: listened to lots of great live music, strolled among the arts and crafts booths, danced and hooped, ate and drank, and – in large numbers – sought sweet relief in the festival’s Rain Room misting tent.

They lingered there under the nozzles issuing a steady cooling spray of water, and then, damp but oh so refreshed, they ventured back out for more festival fun.

The souls who attended had a good time, but they also helped an important cause.

The festival raises funds for the Eno River Association, and all proceeds go to preserve and protect that beautiful and sensitive river and its lands.

And that is something worth celebrating, no matter how hot it is.

 

Roses to Orange County Solid Waste Management for implementing a new process called single stream recycling.

What that means is that you no longer have to separate your recyclables into categories.

In your curbside bins or carts, and at the drop-off sites, you can throw the glass jar, plastic bottles and aluminum cans in with the magazines, phone books and milk cartons.

Everybody into the pool.

OK, it’s not a party, exactly.

But it does make recycling that much easier and more convenient, which can only encourage more of it.

Single stream also makes life easier for the pickup crews and increases capacity on recycling trucks, because everything goes into one compartment.

That should save money in transportation costs, and that, too, is good news.

We can do this because the ability to sort materials at the recycling processing facilities has improved dramatically. Commingled materials can now be efficiently separated at the plant, which relieves us of the job of doing it.

The new process applies to both residents and businesses, and went into effect on the first of July.