Abake777
Registered: December 2011
City/Town/Province: Liberty Township
Posts: 1
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The city landscape blurred past my eyes as I traveled homeward from Chicago to Cincinnati. I slightly dozed off from the humming engine for a while. I sleepily opened my eyes to see a gigantic metal machine with enormous spinning blades. But then I turned my head to see hundreds more in various diagonal lines. The sight was breathtaking and I started to realize why they were there. They were there to make harmless energy. They were there to protect the environment by simply spinning in the passing wind. I then thought to myself: Why can’t all energy be like this? Why does our country have to pollute the earth? It just doesn’t make sense. I thought and thought over this puzzling situation, and then I came to a definitive conclusion: I’m going to change my community. I’m going to teach them how to protect the planet because our country will be one step closer to taking care of our own habitat.
The next month and a half before school started was a hectic scramble to start my own unique Environmental Club at my high school. Lots had to be done to prepare for this project my junior year, but I was ecstatic to get started. School began, I gathered members, and we started our first project. We gathered old t-shirts and made t-shirt grocery bags out of them to sell as a fundraiser. We painted different environmentally friendly messages to promote our cause. We sold every single one to parents and children around our community, spreading the word to protect the environment. I find it extremely important to teach others how easy it is to make a difference by simply avoiding plastic bags. Everyone can make a difference, and a meaningful one.
We also reached out to help farmers in Africa by selling bags of coffee. We raised around one hundred dollars, which was tremendous for our first year. Lots of our projects also included the creation of posters and signs to show students an important message about environmental protection. We made a huge banner for our school bridge that reads “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” with the letters containing various natural elements. We also made the three R’s out of old magazines to prove a point that almost anything can be reduced, reused or recycled.
Later in my senior year we traveled to an elementary school in our school district for a recycled can drive. We advocated to the little students to bring in empty cans so that we could recycle them. The kids were ecstatic to participate, trying to collect more cans than their rivaling classmates. I was glad I could help show these kids the fun sides of taking care of the earth and teach them valuable lessons. We collected thousands of cans to show our success (and my friends and I had fun crushing every single one of them in my driveway). During my senior year we went back to this school for a presentation about renewable energy resources and the three R’s. They loved our presentation and our game of Environmental Jeopardy they had the chance to play. This school even created their own Environmental Club to mimic mine, which I thought was outstanding because I know how important it is to teach kids early about protecting the environment.
My goal from the start of my brigade was to change my school’s wasteful ways. We didn’t recycle before my senior year. I couldn’t leave my high school without implementing a complete recycling program. I could not let my school pollute the earth. Well, I did not let my school do just so. I contacted a recycling service and for many weeks I tried to get a recycling program started. Loopholes about money and rules blockaded my path but I didn’t sit down and give up. I pursued to let my principal let me do this. I insisted to the custodians that the student body would help with this program. A couple months later my dream was a reality. Recycling bins flooded the cafeteria, the hallways, the copier room, and the main office. The first day of recycling was an exciting day for me because I saw that people were taking initiative to save the planet. Every day of recycling I see more and more people taking this extra step. I hope that by the end of the year these bins are overflowing with recyclables because then I will know that I will have made a bigger difference than I had ever imagined possible.
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