Taking Out the Trash

Last Friday our team was provided with an opportunity to serve our community at the Aboriginal Days celebration.  I was blessed to be able to take part.  The work was not glamorous...  Picking up garbage and empty trash cans is definitely not high profile work but it is highly necessary when you have that many people all together and especially when there is food involved.

Litter...  Definitely gets up close to the top of my pet peeves list.  I simply can't wrap my brain around how anyone feels that they have the right to just throw their garbage where ever and expect someone else to just come along and pick it up.  Really people...  Just clean up after yourselves.  The amount of litter that I see on a daily basis brings out many not so fantastic emotions in me.

On Friday, there was time to see humanity in action on this issue.  There were sweet little people who dropped their napkins or had them blown away in the wind while mom was busy attending to others.  I am happy to help out that sweet momma who is doing her best - I well remember those crazy days.  There were people (actually the majority) who diligently moved all of their trash to the garbage as soon as they were finished with it.  Yay!  There were people who just threw their orange peelings on the ground and walked away (and when they are handing out free oranges and watermelon, there were lots of peels).  I understand that they make great compost and that they are bio-degradable BUT this was not the time or the place to put that belief into practice.

One of the things that I surprised me the most was the number of half drank disposable coffee cups that were just abandoned everywhere.  I am going to make an assumption that these cups belonged to adults.  Shame on you!  In one case, it was left on the water fountain just outside the washrooms.  Definitely how to not set a good example.

Then I had other opportunities to cheer on the people around me.  One teacher hunted me down to get a garbage bag so that his class could clean up the hillside they were eating lunch on.  But my favourite story was one that I did not expect.  I was walking along the back of the building picking up bits of garbage as I made my way around.  A young fellow started picking up garbage as he walked towards me and then asked if he could put it in my bag!!!  That is awesome!

Now that I have that little rant off my chest - I want to thank the team members who were able to come out on Friday.  It was a great day out in the fresh air getting to know each of you a little bit better.  There was great conversation and laughs.  It was fantastic to see this event for the first time.  I was blown away by how well attended it was and what a great job the organizers did of putting it all together.  It was a very well run event.

Now everyone go out and do an act of kindness for our planet and pick up a piece of trash!