PLEASE, HAVE A SEAT!

A pair of community groups capped off a very special shared project this week.

That project - to collect thousands of plastic bottle caps, with the goal of remaking them into a bench to be donated to Hickory Ridge Golf Course - originated in 2017 with Carbondale Lions Club member Dick Bradley. The Lions and members of the Boys and Girls Club of Carbondale collected about 400 pounds of caps over the course of six months, Lions president Gary Metro said.

The caps then were sent to Green Tree Plastics in Evansville, Ind., where they were reformed into what otherwise looks like a regular park bench.

Tragically, however, Bradley passed away in August 2018 - just a day before Green Tree completed the project. On Tuesday, members of the Lions and the BGCC dedicated the newly placed bench in his honor.