Our teen board and a few friends cleaned up the trail to Rainbow Bridge.
It was our inaugural cleanup campaign as a new chapter. We expected to pickup trash and feel good about seeing the fruits of our labor. Removing 60 pounds of trash in less than 2 hours felt great – that was definitely the sense of accomplishment we anticipated. But, what wasn’t on our radar was all of the complementary feelings that accompanied our cleanup campaign: a sense of serving our community, nurturing friendships, respite from being in nature, and a skull identification contest (yes, you read that right!)
Being with friends can foster community, but having motorists notice our work and stop to ask questions was fulfilling. What better way to spread the word of caring for our environment than to have someone stop and ask how they can help in the future! Inviting our friends to clean with us made (what could be) and arduous task really fun – another way to feel the importance of community.
And then the fun part came... little frogs that might go unnoticed if it weren’t for a fellow trash collector’s keen eye. The deer that showed themselves as the sun lowered further in the sky. And the skulls that reminded us of the ecological relationships within the urban ecosystem. Who knew that we’d have a skull identification contest while cleaning the path to Rainbow Bridge – kudos to Audrey for being named our master identifier!
Want to host your own cleanup campaign? Please contact our board at cugp.oprf@gmail.com. We’d love to help you!
-Libby, Audrey, Lily, Gia and Frankie
Comments