Spring Up to Clean Up 2008 Winning Stories
To read the honourable mention stories click here.
THE BELIEVERS By: Amy Turk
My name is Amy Turk and I'm going to tell you about my experience with Eco-Superiors Spring-up to Clean-up Challenge. It all started at the beginning of May. My children, a friend and myself, were walking to the park, picking up garbage along the way (as we do every spring).
Now I have to tell you, I do this because of a childhood experience with my grandma. Whenever we were visiting she would take us for walks with her. If we walked passed any garbage lying on the side of the road she would pick it up and take it home. I remember asking her why she did this and she told me, "There is no point leaving it for someone else, garbage doesn't belong along the road!" That was her answer. Simple as that!
It just so happens that day we returned from the park (after picking up 7 shopping bags of garbage in four blocks!) I found the classifieds in my mailbox. I came across Eco-Superiors, Spring-up to Clean-up challenge. I thought that would be a great challenge for us to try. So I discussed it with the kids. They were very excited and ready for the challenge.
I called eco-superior the next morning. Karen the organizer told me more about how the challenge was conducted. Usually it's companies who pick a day and an area around the city to clean up. She said I was still able to be part of the challenge; I just needed a team name and an area to clean. So I talked to the kids and it didn't take long to come up with a name. The Believers because we believe we can make a difference. We decided to pick Fort William Rd. because it was close to home and we knew it needed to be done.
We went out collecting. The first day we collected four huge garbage bags, we went out three more times and got at least four bags each time. What a challenge it was indeed! We were amazed at the garbage we found. Of course a lot of the trash was fast food wrappers, Styrofoam and plastic bags. Some of the other stuff was more interesting, such as; cell phones, clothing, car parts, a flashlight, bingo dabbers and bottles of urine, just to name a few. How does this stuff get their in the first place? I like to think it must be accidentally.
Now as we were picking this garbage up we had a lot of time to talk (Most of the time I was thinking what have I got us into?). It was pretty overwhelming to say the least. The main thing we wanted was to make a difference, and we sure did that. People walking and biking by would tell us we were doing a great job. This made us feel really good. When we got down to Daniers transmission a gentlemen came out and picked up the garbage around the shop and gave my son $5.00. Now I thought, wouldn't it be great if everyone just picked up the garbage around their work and/or home areas? If only we lived in a perfect world.
Anyways my final thought. What if every person who reads, or hears about this, challenged themselves? We "The Believers" challenge you, pick an area around your home and spring-up to clean it up. You can make a difference too!
*******************************************************************
MOUNTAIN OF BUTTS By: Heather Donaghy
For my family, Spring Up to Clean Up has been an annual event for us since 2000. It's a family tradition. Every year, all four of us- Mom, Dad, my little sister Bonnie and I- get out our black and blue bags and gardening gloves and trek out to the Hillcrest hill, conveniently located right behind our house, and spend the next few hours trying to undo the damage that everybody else caused from the year between. We usually cover the slope of the hill, the crest of the hill, the park and the Sunken Gardens. This year, Mom was telling us about this contest and I got an idea. The parking lots at the top of the hill are always absolutely covered by cigarette butts, so many we usually ignore them because it's just a lost cause- we'd never be able to pick them all up. But, I said, Why don't we gather up as many cigarette butts as we can and make them into a picture that we can send in to show how gross this is? Everybody else thought it was a great idea and we decided to do our regular clean-up, then come back with brooms and take the (enclosed) picture of the butts.
So we set out, at about 11 am, and started on the hill. It was a big job, and we split up- Dad and Bonnie went in the direction of Hillcrest Park, and Mom and I went towards the Sunken Gardens. To make a long story short, we met up at around 1:30 at the Sunken Gardens, with several large bags each and many other pictures of the garbage-strewn wasteland we were cleaning. Then we went back to the house to drop off the bags and Bonnie and Dad, who were tired and didn't want to help with the picture. So it was just Mom and I. We grabbed a fresh garbage bag for the butts- we weren't going to sweep them up and then just leave them there, obviously- and the brooms and dustpan and were off, back up the hill.
We swept both parking lots, even though we could only take a picture of the butts in one of them. When we got to the second to take the picture, only about half of the butts ended up getting put in the pile in the end, because it would've taken hours to get them all, there were so many. But, what a pile it was! It was a stack of nicotine, paper, gravel and other stuff that reached over the top of the curb and still had a pretty big base! It was gross. We swept it up into the bag, headed back home (we picked up the garbage that had somehow accumulated since we'd been by an hour ago as we went), threw that bag in with the others, and went inside to wash our hands.
And that is the story of the enclosed picture, the Mountain of Butts.
*************************************************************************
The winners each received a mountain bike courtesy of Tim Hortons.
 |
 |
|
Heather Donaghy |
Amy Turk |
|
