b'Chapter Two^Kmericas conscience about its fragile environment was stirring uneasily in late 1970 when a ministers wife in Wellesley, Massachusetts, called a special meeting on the urgency of protecting the exhaustible resources of our world. After she appealed to parishioners to join hands and work together, Mrs. Jason (Martha) Stone rose to speak. Why dont we think about starting a recycling program, she asked, remembering a ground-breaking California project shed read about.1The words were scarcely out of Martha Stones mouth when another attendee, distinguished Harvard professor Marshall Goldman, got up. No one could miss his point: there was no way Wellesley could start to recycle, and it would be better to drop the idea. Obviously, Dr. Goldman did not know Martha Stone. Daughter of a spunky mother, she rarely turns her back on joining committee efforts to take up issues she sees as vital to her town. Gearing up a recycling program in Wellesley was no exception.True, the Stones had three children.But while they were in school, Martha and the new committee went into action. They got a commitment from the town to use an area at the dump, then arranged to run a notice in the paper on February 11, 1971, appealing for old glass. The first two weeks, she says, we were simply overwhelmed.In short order, she was point person for contacting dealers to buy the recyclables and for persuading the town government to open a separate account toMartha Stone, an FCW bank the money earned. stalwart since the earliest We did a bang-up job, Martha Stonedays in the 1980s, has acknowledges. We ended up being designatedrepeatedly brought drive and intelligence to the the best recycling program in the nation forboards initiatives.populations of about 25,000. She prefersRarely has she taken never to fly solo in her volunteer efforts, butno! for an answer, and when it comes to tackling big issues throughrarely does she forget a committee, Ive had a lot of practice, she things.Gordon Zellner23'