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Kids Corner
You’re Never Too Young To Change the World
How many times have you had a great idea that could make the world a better place? We’re betting you’ve had a lot of them, but maybe you figured you were too young to get people to listen.
In honor of Earth Day, April 22, here are stories of two girls who were in grade school when they decided they wanted to make a difference. They came up with terrific ideas for ecology projects that have spread throughout the world.
Melissa Poe was only 9 years old when she started worrying about air pollution. She’d seen an episode of the TV show, “Highway to Heaven,” that showed people in the future breathing through gas masks because the air was so dirty.
Until then, Melissa didn’t even know what pollution was. “I didn’t want to grow up in a world with a polluted environment,” she says on a website she started. “At the end of the program, however, Michael Landon, the actor, said something very important. He said, ‘It’s not too late. People who care will do something!’ I wanted to be one of those who cared.”
Melissa wrote a letter to the White House, pleading with then-President George Bush (the first president Bush) to help clean up the air. “If you ignore this letter we will all die of pollution,” she wrote. But all she got back from the president was a form letter that made no mention of pollution.
Melissa decided to make sure the president and millions of other people saw her letter. With her mom’s help, she persuaded an advertising company to post a huge copy of her letter on a billboard in her hometown, Nashville, Tenn. Soon, Melissa’s letter was on 250 billboards across the country.
Then Melissa decided to form a kids’ club. With six friends, she started Kids For A Clean Environment. They called it Kids FACE for short.
“Club members started doing things like recycling, picking up litter and planting trees as well as inviting other kids to join,” Melissa says on the Kids Face website, at www.kidsface.org. “Soon, letters written by kids, started arriving. They asked, ‘How can I help. What can I do? How can I join your club and get started?’
More than 300,000 children and teen-agers around the world have joined Kids FACE. “Don’t limit yourself,” Melissa says in a Sierra Club interview. “Just start doing something small. Small things add up.”
Tara Church was just 8 years old when she and other members of her Brownie troop had a tough decision to make: Should they bring paper plates to the Brownies’ outdoor Jublilee Roundup, or haul water in and wash dishes? They debated it, but the organizers decided to require paper plates. So Tara’s troop planted a tree to offset the paper they’d used.
They called their sycamore sapling, “Marcie the Marvelous Tree.” While gathered around Marcie, they came up with the idea of saving the planet by planting thousands of trees.
Tara and her friends began planting and caring for trees in their town near Los Angeles. They also started a citywide recycling program. They launched a newspaper column, a toll-free hotline and a school program to get other kids involved, as well as a website, www.treemusketeers.org. And they hold national and regional youth summits.
Because of the work Tara’s troop started 13 years ago, thousands of kids across the country are planting trees, recycling and doing many other projects to keep their communities green.
“Every single action of every single person is extremely valuable,” Tara says in a Sierra Club interview. “We all have the capacity to change the world.”
DID YOU KNOW . . . ? Source: www.planetpals.com
How many times have you had a great idea that could make the world a better place? We’re betting you’ve had a lot of them, but maybe you figured you were too young to get people to listen.
In honor of Earth Day, April 22, here are stories of two girls who were in grade school when they decided they wanted to make a difference. They came up with terrific ideas for ecology projects that have spread throughout the world.
Melissa Poe was only 9 years old when she started worrying about air pollution. She’d seen an episode of the TV show, “Highway to Heaven,” that showed people in the future breathing through gas masks because the air was so dirty.
Until then, Melissa didn’t even know what pollution was. “I didn’t want to grow up in a world with a polluted environment,” she says on a website she started. “At the end of the program, however, Michael Landon, the actor, said something very important. He said, ‘It’s not too late. People who care will do something!’ I wanted to be one of those who cared.”
Melissa wrote a letter to the White House, pleading with then-President George Bush (the first president Bush) to help clean up the air. “If you ignore this letter we will all die of pollution,” she wrote. But all she got back from the president was a form letter that made no mention of pollution.
Melissa decided to make sure the president and millions of other people saw her letter. With her mom’s help, she persuaded an advertising company to post a huge copy of her letter on a billboard in her hometown, Nashville, Tenn. Soon, Melissa’s letter was on 250 billboards across the country.
Then Melissa decided to form a kids’ club. With six friends, she started Kids For A Clean Environment. They called it Kids FACE for short.
“Club members started doing things like recycling, picking up litter and planting trees as well as inviting other kids to join,” Melissa says on the Kids Face website, at www.kidsface.org. “Soon, letters written by kids, started arriving. They asked, ‘How can I help. What can I do? How can I join your club and get started?’
More than 300,000 children and teen-agers around the world have joined Kids FACE. “Don’t limit yourself,” Melissa says in a Sierra Club interview. “Just start doing something small. Small things add up.”
Tara Church was just 8 years old when she and other members of her Brownie troop had a tough decision to make: Should they bring paper plates to the Brownies’ outdoor Jublilee Roundup, or haul water in and wash dishes? They debated it, but the organizers decided to require paper plates. So Tara’s troop planted a tree to offset the paper they’d used.
They called their sycamore sapling, “Marcie the Marvelous Tree.” While gathered around Marcie, they came up with the idea of saving the planet by planting thousands of trees.
Tara and her friends began planting and caring for trees in their town near Los Angeles. They also started a citywide recycling program. They launched a newspaper column, a toll-free hotline and a school program to get other kids involved, as well as a website, www.treemusketeers.org. And they hold national and regional youth summits.
Because of the work Tara’s troop started 13 years ago, thousands of kids across the country are planting trees, recycling and doing many other projects to keep their communities green.
“Every single action of every single person is extremely valuable,” Tara says in a Sierra Club interview. “We all have the capacity to change the world.”
DID YOU KNOW . . . ? Source: www.planetpals.com
- Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.
- Each person throws away about four pounds of garbage every day.
- Most families throw away about 88 pounds of plastic every year.
- 14 billion pounds of trash are dumped into the ocean every year.
- 84 percent of all household waste can be recycled.
- The 500 million automobiles on earth burn an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day.
- We each use about 12,000 gallons of water a year.