One of our goals this year is to have our students participate in some kind of community service every month. You don't have to look too hard to find ways to make a difference on this island. One opportunity present on every beach in Saipan is picking up litter. Trash is everywhere here. When the bureau of environmental and coastal quality announced they were starting their annual international coastal cleanup project, we were the first school to sign up. Equipped with garbage bags and gloves, we made our way up "beach road" and collected everything from gum wrappers to old shoes. Part of our task was to keep a tally of everything we found on forms the BECQ provided. Last years participants recorded finding 1,685,422 food wrappers, 555,007 straws, 940,170 plastic beverage bottles, 4 guitars and 1 rubber chicken. I wonder if they also kept track of shoes because we found a lot of them...
About two hours and a mile of beach later we had collected eight bags of garbage. After a quick pose with our hard work, we loaded everyone on to the bus and drove them back to the school where a reward of Ice Keki awaited us. This project was about a month ago. Just recently I walked down beach road again and all the trash had returned. Its hard to not feel frustrated when so much hard work seems to vanish with the rise in tide. The job is never ending. At least there is satisfaction in knowing you've made a difference, even though it only lasted for a little while.
No comments:
Post a Comment