Jan 2019 Eclipse Glasses

BYA (and BAS) Service Project—Sorting Solar Eclipse Glasses Jan. 25-26, 2019

What: Service project to sort solar eclipse glasses (sort out the good ones, throw away the bad) that were sent to Explore Scientific in Springdale, Arkansas, at the behest of Astronomers Without Borders. Astronomers Without Borders, a non-profit, invited the general public, following the 2017 solar eclipse in the U.S., to send their used-but-still good eclipse glasses to Explore Scientific. Explore Scientific, in turn, would sort the glasses and send those they deemed still good to students in South America and Asia where there will be a total and annular solar eclipse, respectively, later this year.

Also held at the event was a silent auction to raise money for BYA educational projects, supplies and equipment, and BYA and BAS members were invited to donate items in advance, preferably on or before the Friday night, or if that was not possible, on the Saturday morning.

Who: BYA and BAS members, working with Clint Branham and Kent Marts of Springdale, Arkansas's Sugar Creek Astronomical Society, who brought us the eclipse glasses to sort. Clint is Vice President of the Sugar Creek Astronomical Society and Kent is a director. Kent works for Explore Scientific, where the eclipse glasses were initially sent and warehoused.

Where: Masonic Lodge, 610 NE Washington Blvd.

When: Jan. 25 meet at the Masonic Lodge to unload boxes of eclipse glasses from the truck driven by Clint and Kent. Jan. 26 meet at the Masonic Lodge 10 am-4 pm to sort the glasses

Who coordinated: Abby, Colleen, and Lashawn set this up as a BYA service project and invited BAS members to participate, as we would have a lot of eclipse glasses to sort! Rick Bryant, Colleen Buck, Lashawn Bollenbach, and Abby made contact with the Sugar Creek Astronomical Society and Explore Scientific (Scott Roberts, President) last year at the MSRAL convention. Explore Scientific received something like 3-3 ½ million eclipse glasses to sort following the 2017 solar eclipse. Abby also coordinated with the Masonic Lodge to use their facility for sorting the glasses. Since she volunteers her time at the Masonic Saturday breakfasts, they agreed for us to be able to use it without charge. They have a large room with a lot of round tables (where they have the breakfasts) that worked well for sorting.

Abby, Lashawn, Colleen, Rick Buck and Rick Bryant coordinated the silent auction.

Publicity used: For the BAS, Abby initially presented this activity at the December 2018 meeting and it was discussed also at the January 2019 meeting. Abby sent out a private Facebook event. Lashawn also sent a reminder email with full details of the event to BAS members on January 17.

Number of people who attended: Jan. 25 unloading: 13, including Kent and Clint, and two guests. Jan 26 sorting: 24, including Kent and Clint, two guests, and several family members of BYA and BAS.

Materials brought for sorting:

• • Trash bags to hold eclipse glasses thrown away

  • Large mailing boxes to hold eclipse glasses sending back to Arkansas

  • Tablet for recording zip codes/cities where glasses sent from (Astronomers Without Borders wanted this information)

  • Black sharpie markers (to address boxes) and pens

  • Rubber bands group good glasses together for shipping

  • Clear mailing tape

  • Scissors—multiple pairs

  • Gloves, to protect hands while using scissors

  • Xeroxed copies of lists of good manufacturers of solar eclipse glasses (list supplied by Clint and Kent and Lashawn made copies)

  • First aid cream and band-aids in case of paper cuts

  • Some people brought beverages to drink

Silent Auction items brought included:

• • 5 hand-made shawls

  • Box of candy bars

  • Several books

  • Two small telescopes

  • Two Great American Eclipse 2017 posters (put with the telescopes)

  • Rocket and astronomy magazines

  • 82-degree eyepiece donated by Explore Scientific

  • Handmade items by Andre & Martha

Materials of location site used: Bottles of water (at lunchtime), soft drinks (at lunchtime), and paper plates and napkins to serve the pizza we brought in for lunch. Also, several members of the Masonic Lodge were there to open up for us and they remained on-site until we were done. The Masons also let us use their dumpsters to dispose of all bad eclipse glasses (~40,000).

BAS expenditures: None

Sorting process used: Clint and Kent recommended dividing the jobs out, assembly-line, as we had some 50,000 pairs of glasses to sort (we ended up with about 10,700 good ones). This worked! Here are the jobs and about how many people did them:

• • Open envelopes with glasses—2 people

  • Record zip codes/cities—1 person

  • Runners—convey glasses to sort to sorting tables, then good glasses from sorting tables to packing tables—2 people

  • Sorting glasses—11 people at 4 tables

  • Putting pairs of eclipse glasses in rubber bands, about 50 to a set—4 people

  • Preparing boxes to send—4 people

How determined good glasses from ones to throw away:

Clint and Kent brought a sheet with names of good manufacturers. In some cases, manufacturers were put on glasses when they shouldn’t have been; in these cases, there were other ways to determine if manufacturer was good. Glasses with no manufacturer’s name listed, or a not-good one, or glasses that were torn, bent, had skin oils or makeup on them, or were otherwise deemed to be not usable were thrown away.

They said that when putting the eclipse glasses into rubber bands, you don’t need to count each set; Once you’ve done one and know how large the stack is, you can eyeball it from there.

Comments:

We enjoyed visiting with Clint and Kent so much that most of those who came to unload boxes on the Friday night met for breakfast with them at Eggberts’ on the Saturday morning at 8. We got the large table in the back and had a great time visiting. Clint and Kent were staying at the Holiday Inn so Eggberts’ was convenient for them. We left about 9:30 to drive to the Masonic Lodge.

We also brought in pizza for lunch. Everyone contributed $10 to cover the cost of the pizza.

Some of the envelopes sent with glasses had special messages or letters in them; these envelopes and the letters were saved for the BYA to write letters to these donors. Many people spent more money on postage to send in the glasses than the glasses themselves cost; this showed how much people valued having the glasses when they watched the eclipse!

Many envelopes had the special eclipse stamps on them. (We saved special stamps for Gianna to start a stamp collection with!)

We were done sooner than expected; we started wrapping up about 2:30 and were out by 3:15.

Since Clint and Kent had to leave the sorting event early, it was discussed that they would try to get the glasses sometime before April. But Astronomers Without Borders decided to expedite the timeline and wanted Explore Scientific to ship all glasses, sorted and unsorted, to LA by Thursday, February 7th. So Abby arranged to meet them halfway, in Chouteau, to deliver our six boxes of packed and sorted glasses on Wednesday, February 6th. Kent said that we are the only club that offered to help with this monumental project, even though they discussed it with many clubs.