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Recycle for Veterans empowers vets and the planet
Recycle for Veterans (RFV), a non-profit based in California, helps veterans clean up the environment by providing resources for personal growth in exchange.
RFV’s mission is as ambitious as it is simple: “To remove trash from our planet by empowering veterans to clean our communities.”
Besides recycling litter, RFV also gives veterans a chance to recycle their leadership skills and continue to serve in a “different and equally important way.”
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The Co-founders, Kyle Hansen and Andrew Levin, both served in the United States Marine Corps prior to starting RFV. Hansen informed Pop Smoke Media earlier today that what the pair experienced while back from deployment spurred them to create the organization.
Hansen said that the huge amount of trash he saw on the beaches of his home state led him to the question, “If we aren’t going to clean up now, then when?”
Instead of waiting for someone else to answer, Hansen and Levin decided to take up the issue themselves.
Then vs. Now
RFV first began as a veteran-based conservation group focused solely on cleaning up beaches.
Hansen told Pop Smoke that Covid-19 restrictions forced them to confine their efforts to beaches in 2020, due to the fact that they could not gather so many people anywhere else.
With the Covid-19 pandemic lulling, RFV is rebranding to include a new program in August.
The new program is called “Eco-warriors,” and is aimed at expanding RFV’s efforts to many more places. The resources they provide to members of the program will also grow with the rebranding.
As of now, RFV operates in a handful of cities in California, Washington, and Oregon
By 2022, the organization plans to expand their operations to Texas, New York, Florida, North Carolina, and even Africa.
So far the group has completed 22 cleanups out of their total goal of 40 for 2021. And the pace these events occur at is steadily increasing each day.
