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![\"Arthur](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4226744_web1_Maggie-Koreen-and-Aileen-Audette-in-Adventures-from-the-Vending-Machine---photo-by-Arth.jpeg\")
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Arthur MacKinnon photo<\/p>\n
Maggie Koreen and Aileen Audette are recyclables in Adventures From the Vending Machine.<\/p>\n
Before long, the group brought its brand of sustainable, entertaining and environmentally focused productions and workshops to middle years, along with junior and senior high school classes, not to mention public outdoor performances that reached a wider age demographic.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo self-respecting 11-year-old wanted to call themselves a kid,\u201d says Leitold, who\u2019s currently preparing the set and costume design for this season\u2019s Shakespeare in the Ruins production of As You Like It.<\/p>\n
So the non-profit consulted with a network of 150 stakeholders beginning in 2024 to turn a new leaf.<\/p>\n
The updated name came as a write-in suggestion by a producer who was at the helm when Leitold \u2014 one of the city\u2019s busiest theatrical designers as well as a voice-over artist \u2014 first found out about the company from an audition posting on the wall at the University of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
As an acting student with minors in education and environmental studies, Leitold felt it would be a perfect fit.<\/p>\n
As Green Kids Inc., the organization was founded in 1991 by 22-year-old entrepreneur Jeff Golfman, whose company, Plan-It Recycling, serviced more than 14,000 Winnipeg homes with curbside recycling pickup in 1994, one year before the implementation of city-wide blue-box recycling.<\/p>\n
Golfman\u2019s current company, Raw Office, a sustainable office supplies firm, continues to provide annual donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had said that in school he remembered some people coming to do a song and dance about not drinking the poison under the sink, and he felt it was effective,\u201d says Leitold. \u201cHe thought to do the same thing, but for the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t a theatre guy but an entrepreneur, so had this idea, and found some activist friends who were naive and energetic enough to go into school gymnasiums and raise the ruckus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leitold recalls a DIY ethos, with actors writing, designing and directing eco-conscious shows. In the 1990s, Green Kids didn\u2019t have to worry as much about costume and set cost: Value Village \u2014 then an independent company but now the largest for-profit thrift operator in Canada and the U.S. \u2014 was an official sponsor of Green Kids Inc.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was, \u2018Here\u2019s all the things you could ever want \u2014 for free,\u2019\u201d Leitold says.<\/p>\n
Now, the company relies on more affordable and sustainable design principles: in her own work and with the Wild Roots Team, Leitold often fashions costumes, props and sets from found and repurposed materials.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the University of Winnipeg\u2019s theatre and film program engaged Wild Roots to develop its approach to sustainable practices.<\/p>\n
Last year, Wild Roots reached an estimated audience of 9,000 through its projects, working with nearly 30 workers on a series of events produced for and with organizations such as Bike Week, the Green Action Centre and Recycle Everywhere.<\/p>\n
The collaboration with Recycle Everywhere \u2014 a firm associated with the Canadian Beverage Container Recycling Association \u2014 funded Adventures From the Vending Machine.<\/p>\n
Written by Wren Brian with dramaturgy by Heidi Malazdrewich, Adventures from the Vending Machine introduces audiences to Can (Aileen Audette) and Bottle (Maggie Koreen), two beverage containers who wind up in the garbage after their contents are consumed.<\/p>\n
After some misadventures, the citrus-flavoured heroes learn about the superiority of aluminum as a recyclable material that doesn\u2019t lose its integrity after repetitive reuse.<\/p>\n
The show and its associated workshops have proven sturdy and dependable, reaching more than 5,400 students and educators through 50 performances across Manitoba in their first year on the road.<\/p>\n
winnipegfreepress.com\/benwaldman<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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