Celebrated every April 22, Earth Day is the largest, most celebrated environmental event worldwide. The very first Earth Day was held in 1970 and was an event often credited with launching the modern American environmental movement. Since then people all over the world have celebrated Earth Day each year on or about April 22 with a variety of activities and events designed to help bring environmental awareness to the forefront of general public consciousness.
The Rome/Floyd Recycling Center, local grocery stores and our students in the City, County and private schools have joined students all over the world for the last 5 years in participating in “The Earth Day Groceries Project”. The concept is simple yet powerful. Local grocery stores give students new brown paper bags. The students then decorate those bags with their own creative Earth Day messages and then return the bags to the stores by April 22 – Earth Day. Then the creatively decorated bags are used to put customer’s groceries into for the next week or so and the Earth Day message gets spread throughout the entire community.
Last year, the
Recycling Center offered to make a donation of $.10 for every bag that was
decorated and sent back to the store to help save a Rainforest through Kids For
Saving Earth, an organization founded by 11 year old Clinton Hill. He couldn't understand what we were doing to
our planet - the poisons we dumped into our skies and rivers - the neglect we
showed for our precious plants and animals.
How, he wondered, could we do such things? Of course we all wonder.
But that is where Clint was different.
He didn't just wonder. He
acted. He started a club for kids
dedicated to peaceful Earth-saving Actions.
He called it Kids for Saving Earth and after he died of cancer, his
mother and father established Kids for Saving Earth(KSE) as
a nonprofit organization with thousands of kids doing good Earthworks. In
2004 our schools reported a total of 1,264 bags that were decorated and
returned to grocery stores. The
Recycling Center sent a check for $ 126.40 to the organization and set a goal
for $300.00, or 3,000 bags for 2005. For
more information, visit their web site at: http://www.kidsforsavingearth.org/
Earth Day continues to be observed (this is its 35th year) because it works. Earth Day broadens the base of support for environmental programs, rekindles public commitment, and involves a wide range of participants. Look for your special Earth Day bags at local stores later this month and enjoy the wonderful creativity of our local students.
Remember, you don’t need to wait for April 22 to help out the Earth. Earth Day is every day – to build a better future for the environment. We all need to be working toward solutions on a year-round basis.