The Rincon Lions Club is searching for a new home for its paper recycling box.

Its bin, which has been in the Wal-Mart parking lot for 16 years, needs a new place, according to Vernon Gordy of the Lions Club. The Goodwill donation bin also needs to find a new station.

“I’ve talked to several people, and their parking lots are too small for them,” Gordy said.

Right now, both the Lions Club and Goodwill donation boxes are in Guyton. A Lions Club donation box already in Guyton does quite well, Gordy said, and many of the businesses there use it to recycle cardboard.

But Gordy wants to get the longtime Wal-Mart recycling bin a new place to stay in Rincon.

“I want to get it back here in Rincon,” he said. “The volume is here; the traffic is here. It serves a purpose in the community.”

The Lions Club uses the proceeds from the recycling to buy eyeglasses and obtain eye exams for students in need in the county.

“They can’t do for themselves,” Gordy said, “so you try to take care of them as best you can. Every penny that comes out of that box goes to buy eyeglasses.”

School counselors let the Lions Club know which students might be in need of having their eye exams and eyeglasses provided and their backgrounds are checked out. The Lions Club also makes sure to spread its beneficence around to local eye doctors, splitting the students it takes care of between Effingham Eye Care and Lord Eye Center.

“We’ve gotten good service, and we keep the money right here in Effingham County,” Gordy said. “We are helping Effingham County students first and we keep the money right here.”

No matter where the Lions Club places its recycling bin, Gordy insisted it won’t deter their mission.

“We’ll keep doing it, regardless of where they go,” he said.