Myra Gordon Grew Environmental Consciousness
Myra Gordon is one of WGLT’s 21 Women Who Shaped Bloomington-Normal.
By Lyndsay Jones
Long before it was popular, Myra Gordon championed recycling.
A transplant to Bloomington-Normal with her husband George back in the 1970s, Gordon didn’t know that she would end up changing its landscape forever.
“It was a combination of both: I was very interested in the idea of recycling and thought maybe I could make a contribution — and I also wanted to volunteer,” Gordon said. “It’s difficult to move to a new place where nobody knows you.”
Gordon got her start volunteering with Operation Recycle, a local group dedicated to sustainability and broadening access to recycling options. It was Operation Recycle that pushed both Bloomington and Normal’s governments to offer curbside recycling decades ago, though a pilot program faltered before the practice became permanent years later.
“It amuses me now and makes me sad at the same time because so many of the things that we’re doing now, those of us involved in the recycling center said, ‘We need to be doing these things,’ ” Gordon said. “That was in the early 80s — so, 35 years ago. If we had started then, what a different world we might have made.”
But Gordon’s work did make a different world. She rose from founding volunteer to first full-time director. From Operation Recycle came dozens and dozens of volunteer-run recycling drives throughout the Twin Cities and other recycling services that diverted tons of waste from landfills. Profits from recyclable sales were donated to various improvement projects across the county, including tree planting at Miller Park Zoo and Comlara Park, the results of which are still visible today.
Myra Gordon got her start volunteering with Operation Recycle, a local group dedicated to sustainability and broadening access to recycling options. Photo courtesy Ecology Action Center
Operation Recycle eventually became what’s now known as the Ecology Action Center, a nonprofit offering an array of services and support for sustainability practices in McLean County.
“The EAC would be a much a different place without Myra,” said current executive director Michael Brown. “She really helped build the foundation of it — she and a few others. I like to refer to the old expression that we are now standing on the shoulders of giants. Myra is one of those giants.”
Decades after stepping down, Gordon still sits on the EAC’s board, attending meetings virtually from her retirement home in Massachusetts.
Gordon’s impact in the Twin Cities wasn’t limited to environmentalism. While raising a family, she pursued a master’s degree and eventually snagged an internship at State Farm that turned into a permanent job. And just when she thought she’d take a step back from it all and retire, another opportunity presented itself.
The philanthropy-focused Illinois Prairie Community Foundation needed an executive director. Gordon was already an executive vice president on the board and had the experience needed for the position. She stepped in as interim director and stayed in the permanent job for six years. Her tenure oversaw the creation of the Women to Women Giving Circle, one of her “happiest successes,” and Youth Engaged in Philanthropy. (Gordon was IPCF’s executive director from 2006 to 2013.)
When Gordon did finally retire, she didn’t stop being active in the community, but busied herself alongside husband George with work at Moses Montefiore Temple in Bloomington and helping an effort to get 10,000 trees planted in McLean County each year.
Of course, Gordon is most proud of her two grown children, whom she and George are now grateful to live close to on the East Coast. Still, she misses Bloomington-Normal, she said, and everyone she worked with over the decades.
“What makes Bloomington-Normal really special is that people from all across the spectrum … come together for the good of the community, work on the real needs and create a lot of great programs,” Gordon said. “That really seems to me to be the thing: Nobody can do everything, but each of us can do something.”