The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics says that schools and libraries in Oklahoma are benefiting from its recycled drug collection boxes.
This comes just five days before National Drug Take-Back Day on Oct. 28.
OBN initially installed these collection boxes in law enforcement lobbies in 2011 for citizens to dispose of old, unwanted home medication.
OBN Spokesperson Mark Woodward says they are now trying to retire and repurpose some of these older metal boxes.
“As we’ve installed new boxes in law enforcement lobbies, we’ve taken the old boxes and found new homes for some of them inside our Oklahoma schools,” Woodward said.
OBN has donated two of these retired boxes to an early education program in Tulsa, which converted them to book return receptacles.
The early education program leader Wendy Jennings responded in a letter to OBN:
CAP Tulsa ECDC Reed would like to thank the OBN for the donation of two white metal mailboxes.
ECDC Reed is one of CAP Tulsa’s ten schools in Tulsa County that serves children aged 6 weeks to 4 years old. Our school, ECDC Reed, is a preschool that serves 3- and 4-year-olds.
When we first saw the pictures of the white mailboxes, we thought they would make great book drops for our school library but we weren’t sure how to decorate them. We have an amazing Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator, Tess Tucker-Trainum, who located a local artist, to see if she would like to paint the boxes for us. We met with the artist, Katy Cassillas-Gray, showed her a few of our children’s favorite books, and asked her to be creative. She came to the school during her free time, over the summer, to complete the paintings for this new school year.
Katy did an amazing job creating two magnificent Library Book Drops for our children. We unveiled the drop boxes at our Library Grand Opening and the children and parents
loved them! They have been placed at the entry to our school and by our four-year-old classrooms to make it easier for parents and children to bring back the books they checked out.
The whole ECDC Reed Family would like to thank you for the donation and our new library book drop boxes!
OBN Director Donnie Anderson is thankful the boxes are able to be reused for another positive purpose.
“Many of today’s overdoses are the result of teens or friends and relatives stealing medication from the home,” Anderson said. “Over the past 12 years, citizens have saved countless lives by safely disposing more than 260,000 pounds of their home medication in our OBN Rx boxes before these drugs could be stolen and reach the streets and schools. It is great to know that these boxes will continue to benefit our citizens and communities long after they have been retired from law enforcement lobbies.”
OBN still has drug drop-off locations that can be viewed on the OBN Facebook page.
By Jessa Murray, KTUL Staff
