"If there’s a world here in a hundred years, it’s going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about 10 million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up!"
- Pete Seeger, in YES! Magazine

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Neighbor Kid CHOOSES to Pick Up Trash!

Today I was driving home from the hardware store when I spotted a neighborhood teen on the other side of a county water district fence. At his feet, was one very large plastic bag he was stuffing with trash. On the sidewalk were two more bags, already filled.

I stopped to find out what he'd done to earn the "honor" of cleaning up the trash so many seem to feel OK sending over the fence. As I pulled up, his mom crossed the street to talk to me. It seems the boy, a freshman at a local high school, chose the project as his own!

"I've been trying to get my kids involved in community service, but there aren't a lot of opportunities for them. Then he asked if he could clean up this area," she said.

Her daughter, like my youngest, loves animals, but our local shelter does not allow volunteers younger than 12, so her keen daughter, mine and other young potential volunteers aren't welcome. Both of my daughters, unusually knowledgeable about California mission history for their ages, signed up to serve as docents with La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, but we were just told volunteer docents must be 9 or older. The 7 year old would not be allowed to tag along, either. Since we travel in a pack, that means another volunteer effort shot down.

(sigh)

I was super glad to see someone else taking neighborhood cleanup seriously, though. Thanks, Neighborhood Teen, for making a difference!


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