Kid Power!

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

~Margaret Mead

In 1989, 9-year old Melissa Poe of Nashville, Tennessee wrote a letter to the President. In simple words, no longer than three sentences long, Melissa's letter said:

"Dear Mr. President,
Please, will you do something about pollution. I want to live till I am a 100 years old.
Mr, President, if you ignore this letter, we will all die of pollution.

Please Help!
Melissa Poe, Age 9
Nashville, Tennessee"

That one letter was printed on over 250 billboards, nationwide, in April of 1990. Driven by this correspondence with (then) President Bush and an episode of Highway to Heaven, Melissa began a club called Kids F.A.C.E (Kids For A Clean Environment) and began with six people. After her billboards and appearances on the Today show, Melissa's club began to grow. A first chapter was formed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Today there are over 2,000 club chapters in fifteen countries, with over 300,000 individual members.

Kids F.A.C.E is now the world's largest youth environmental organization. The organization is responsible for planting and distributing over one million trees, and created the world's largest environmental flag for the 25th anniversary of Earth Day.

Around the same time that Melissa was starting Kids F.A.C.E, a young woman named Tara Church and 12 other Girl Scouts began a program called Tree Musketeers. To combat pollution in their hometown of El Segundo, California, the girls began planting trees. The first tree they planted was named Marcie the Marvelous Tree. In addition, the girls promote recycling programs and hold regional and national Youth Summits. They also operate the Partners for the Planet network (P4P). Tara has received awards for her dedication to environmental causes, including the President's Volunteer Action Award from President Clinton and The Do Something Brick Award featured on MTV. Tree Musketeers is considered the nation's first youth environmental organization.

Those are just two examples I found in about three minutes worth of research on Google and idealist.org. there are dozens--hundreds--of examples of children making a difference on behalf of our environment. We know through these examples that kids care and they care a lot!

Today I asked Peyton what she would do to change the world. She's five, so her first answer didn't make a lot of practical sense. It involved pink frosting for cakes that contained actual glitter. To tell the truth, it sounds like a beautiful new culinary delight for small girl children (for whom everything must be a LOT better if it's glittery), but I question the need for glittery food. I question the need for blue food, too, but several companies have taken that and run with it, so what do I know?

Truthfully, I was hoping she'd say something brilliant and insightful so I'd have a great idea for today's blog, while simultaneously being able to brag about what an intelligent, thoughtful, earth-smart kid I'm raising and maybe get a few pats on the back in the comments section.

Unfortunately, my life does not work that way.

So, I told her I thought that was a great idea, but what would she do to change a problem we have right now and make things better. Yeah, yeah, a question like that would get me a hand slap in a court of law. Sue me. It was a leading question, but I got the answer I wanted, so for the purposes of this blog it worked beautifully.

If my daughter could change one thing about the world, she'd make people stop throwing their trash on the ground.

We live in a large suburb of Denver--actually, we're IN Denver, but right across the street (where our mailbox is) is a suburb named Aurora. That's where my mail gets delivered. It's not inner-city sort of dirty, but we have our fair share of unattractive areas that are made more so by litter. For the most part, our area is well-maintained and cared for, but every once in a while we get "urban tumbleweeds", aka litter. We've been combatting it in our own small way, with our litter walks (the five can walks I referenced last time), but she's right. There's always something left.

I know the source of the problem for our townhouse complex specifically. It's the mail. Our mailboxes are across the street from our unit and every day I watch people get their mail and toss the junk portion aside, or stick it on top of the bank of mailboxes for the wind to blow away. When we first moved here, the property management company had a trash can by the boxes for people to toss their junk in. But, as is often the case with community properties, it was abused. People put their car trash in there, and that made the whole can difficult to dump into the paper recycling bin.

I can appreciate that. But, I'm wondering if it might not be a small thing that Peyton and I could do to make our complex a healthier place to be. If people need places to dump that kind of trash, maybe there needs to be two trash cans there...one for mail and one for other waste.  We can't just put cans over there, the HOA would have them removed.  But, if we could get the HOA to sanction our cause, we might just have a chance at eliminating some of the junk floating around our neighborhood.

At any rate, there's a HOA Board meeting coming up next month, and I'm thinking that I know a little Kindergartener who might get her first taste of community activisim.  That is, if she can tear herself away from the My Little Ponies long enough to go with me!

Amber blogs about life as a stay-at-home mother at Mom and Machine.

Comments

[Katie Alender]

It's amazing to me how many people don't think twice about just dumping their trash! Once I saw a car swerve dangerously off the side of the freeway (in Los Angeles rush hour traffic) so they could throw a huge piece of trash down the side of the hill. Now COME ON. Is it that hard to wait until you park and just find a trash can?

I can just imagine you tearing up the joint at an HOA meeting. You go, girl!

[Chameleon]

I live in the middle of the sweaty inner city. For several years, I lived in a house that bordered the railroad tracks, and for years before that, in a house across from a vacant lot. Both pieces of ground were used as dumping grounds for old sofas, car parts, bags of trash and more. It never ceases to amaze me how people disrespect the Earth and their neighbors by just dumping their trash! Thanks for sharing your daughter's insightful suggestion - even if you DID have to drag it out of her.

[Steve Auger]

Maybe what you need is a garbage bin with a slot for an opening, something like what is provided at ATM machines for garbage disposal. This would prevent large pieces of trash from being put into the paper bin.