Saturday, April 11, 2015

Earth Day 2015

 Fort Myers Charities

Earth Day 2015




 Food For Thought:

Charities and organizations that act as "watchdogs" of the environment have several things in common, and tend to relate well to many of the same things.  The individual that takes pride, and derives esteem from making individual lives better, will more often than not experience the same level/type of satisfaction from trying to protect the Earth from mismanagement and pollutants.  They will speak the same stylistically,  and have a very similar list of values.  I would suggest that this mindset, and an appreciation of those specific values, is something parents can and should be teaching their children.


 Keep Lee County, Florida Beautiful!

With this in mind ...


Earth Day is a great day to get the kids involved, and show them what it feels like to make a difference!

Earth Day was still a fairly new thing when my niece was in her early, elementary years.  I had a friend who had two children her age, and we got them together often enough that all of our relationships solidified into true friendship.  One day my buddy told me he was taking his kids out to pick up trash on Earth Day and invited my niece and I to tag along.  It didn't sound like a big deal one way or the other to me, but, I agreed to go .... even though

I had barely even heard of Earth Day, and wasn't particularly interested!

I was in for a real surprise!  My buddy (Tommy) and his kids picked us up in his International Travelall with an unopened box of 30 gallon trash bags, and a picnic basket his wife had packed with lunch for the kids and us.  He decided he wanted to go to a place where the local teenagers liked to go at night and park/hangout.  We both knew the place because a few short years earlier we hung out there too.

As soon as we arrived we were all taken by the enourmous amount of trash lying on the ground, in the bushes, and in the road itself.  I had been there many times, but, was always focused on the spectacular view of the Potomac river, and not the trash that lay all around my feet.  We were all kind of taken aback by the enormity of the undertaking at hand.  Tommy had a plan ... everyone was going to fill up two trash bags with as much as they could fit into the bags.  We drug them back to the Travellall, and then each of us did another two bags ... rinse and repeat!

We then each took one bag and were responsible for diferent kinds of trash ... i.e.

Paper
Glass
Metal
Styrofoam and Rubber
Plastic

After that round we each retraced our steps with a focus on "attention to detail."  Now there was little enough left in the area we were working that we were able to notice the little things that had escaped our attention  the first couple of times around.  

The end result was truly amazing!!!

We were standing in the grass looking at a beautiful view of the Potomac with out a speck of trash visible, something that seemed ridiculous to expect just two hours before!  The kids could not believe the difference their efforts had made, and in such a short time.  They had begun to understand and appreciate what giving back .... what making the world a better place, can do to make you feel good about yourself!  They were proud of the work they had done, and the end result.  It became one of their favorite nthings to do on a Saturday afternoon, and they asked to do it fairly often.  Furthermore, they now take their kids out to do the same thing!

Giving your time to make the world a better place is the kind of experience that becomes a treasured memory.

We speak often of those times, and they are amongst our most cherished memories.  If you have an interest in creating an opportunity for similar experiences for your kids visit the ...

Keep Lee County Beautiful website
http://klcb.org/


Rick Thomas, Social media/SEO Consultant in Ft Myers Florida, Writer, interested in making a positive difference in my community including but not limited to: regional search engine marketing for small businesses in Ft Myers Florida. Local Google Ranking Improved for both companies and charities. 501c3 non profit promotion done pro bono.

ShareThis