Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

I practically live at South Gate Park. Some people call it my second home, and I always tell them that they are right. I'm a softball player, so playing requires me to spend lots of hours at the park. One thing that I always noticed was that there was always a lot of trash on the ground. It bugged me because it felt like people were trashing my home, and I didn't like it. So one day, a bunch of friends and I decided to do something about it. We organized our own park clean up.
We knew there was no way we could clean the entire park by ourselves, but we knew that every trash we picked up, was one less trash that will remain on the ground. It was actually a lot of fun. We raced each other to see who got the most trash first and turned our small community project into a really amusing game. While walking around, people who came to the park asked us why we were doing what we were doing. We simply responded that we wanted a cleaner park for everyone. The responses were really encouraging. We got quite a few "good jobs" and plenty of props from complete strangers. It's a pretty amazing feeling to know youâ€™re doing something that people appreciate.
In my opinion, if people can take time to throw their trash in a proper waste basket, then the earth would be so much cleaner. It really isnâ€™t that hard. Most of the trash that I picked up was within a few inches of a trash can. It makes me wonder how someone can just throw something on the ground instead of walking 2 more steps and disposing of the trash the proper way. This project has really made me more aware of the Apprentice Ecologist Initiative. Their goal is to get more people into saving the earth. If people were just a little bit more involve, I think that goal can be reached. Iâ€™m proud that I went out to do this, and I will definitely continue doing this type of project until people get the point. The earth is our home, and we need to help keep it clean.