Every afternoon I go on a long walk around my neighborhood with my mom, dad, my little brother Max, and our feisty yellow lab, Rover. But today was different than any of our other walks. We did the usual stuff, like throwing a stick for Rover to fetch or racing Max to the end of the block.  But as we started back home, I noticed that one end of the park was covered with trash – bottles, cigarettes, paper bags, food containers, you name it, it was on the ground! You couldn’t even see the grass anymore! It made the park look so gloomy and dirty! And then I got to thinking, what could I do to help? I thought and thought and finally remembered a story my teacher had read about kids that organized a community clean-up project in their neighborhood. I asked my mom and dad if they could help me put together a clean-up project. They looked at eachother and smiled.  Then my mom gave me a big hug and said, “Of course you can!” My mind was racing the whole way home.  I started doing some research and I’ve made a list of all that I need to do to get started.

1. Ask all the people in my neighborhood if they will be a part of my community project (mom and dad have to come with me because I can’t talk to strangers).  I can also post fliers around the neighborhood with my mom and dad’s phone number if they are interested in helping.
2. Collect trash cans, recycling bins to put the trash from the park inside.
3. Get tools for planting flowers and/or trees in the newly cleaned area.

Ok Diary, I’ve got to go now.  I’ve got lots to do to get ready, but I’ll let you know how my neighborhood clean-up project goes!

Today my mom made me go to the grocery store with her.  Sometimes I like shopping with her, because she lets me pick out lots of healthy snacks (my mom will only buy healthy snacks!), but today I was tired and I really didn’t feel like it.  But then we got to the check-out counter and the man asked us if we wanted paper or plastic. Hold on! Paper? Plastic?  Don’t we have enough of that junk in our landfills? Isn’t our world getting filled with more and more trash that we can’t get rid of already?  Why do we need to cause more of a problem by using paper or plastic bags every time we go to the store? So I got on my computer as soon as we got home and typed in “landfills.”  Do you know the average American family throws away 100 pounds of trash every single week? For most families, that means about 3 pounds of trash a day per person! If only we, as kids, could do something to help! I kept researching and found out that by using reusable bags we are helping to save the environment by reducing the amount of trash that enters landfills every year.  So, I asked my mom if we could buy a few reusable bags to keep in our kitchen and use every time we visit the store.  She said that sounded like a great idea! I am so excited about this that I’m going to tell my teacher tomorrow at school.  I bet she’ll even give me extra credit for teaching the class how to save the environment.  If you want to help, ask your parents if you can use reusable bags instead of polluting landfills with plastic and paper bags.  I bet they’ll be impressed that you’re thinking of the environment.  

Hi! My name is Green Girl! I’m a lot like you. I love learning at school and, of course, playing handball with my friends at recess! Since I love reading stories about people who have made big changes to our world, I decided to do something about it and start writing stories to share with other kids to show that we can all make a big difference. I know that our Earth is in trouble right now and I know I can help. I know you can help. I want to share my ideas with all of you, because, we may be kids, but together we can make a huge difference in our planet’s future!