Around this time of year, Howard County gov­ern­ment offices get calls from peo­ple who want to “do some­thing” for Earth Day.  This is won­der­ful and we’re glad to help!  April is a great time to do out­door projects and we’ve got some com­ing up.  The Upcom­ing Events cal­en­dar has some inter­est­ing ideas.  Check it out for Green­fest (April 2), Project Clean Stream (April 2 and 3), and tree plant­ing projects (CA April 9, Rec and Parks April 30).

On Thurs­day, April 14^th, Howard County is doing what we have named the 20 Minute Cleanup.  Basi­cally, County Exec­u­tive Ken Ulman is ask­ing every­one to get out­side for a short time and pick up lit­ter around their neigh­bor­hoods, offices, schools, what­ever they can do.  If we all do a lit­tle, we can really get a lot of trash out of our envi­ron­ment and make our County look nicer.

Some stu­dents at Vet­er­ans Ele­men­tary school  have come up with an inter­est­ing twist on the 20 Minute Cleanup.  Last week I met with their 4^th grade envi­ron­men­tal club, the “Green Geckos.”  The whole school is going to get out­side on April 14^th and clean up around the school.  Each grade will clean up a dif­fer­ent area.  Then, they are doing an Earth Day Pledge Con­test.  Stu­dents can pledge to “Clean up trash from my neigh­bor­hood over Spring Break.”  The Green Geckos have already col­lected used paper from the recy­cling bins for the stu­dents to write the pledges on.  If the stu­dents do a lit­ter cleanup at home and have their par­ents sign, they will be entered into a draw­ing to win 4 tick­ets to the Bal­ti­more Zoo.  The prize is being paid for by the PTA.

A sim­i­lar easy pledge idea is for stu­dents to write an Earth Day pledge of their choos­ing and then they cut them out in the shape of a leaf and add it to a blank “tree” that is posted in the school some­where.  How inspir­ing it would be to see that tree full of pledge “leaves.”

We’ll see how it goes at VES, but what a cre­ative way to take a school activ­ity and bring it home.  Can’t wait to see what hap­pens and I’ll add an update to this post after­wards.   Feel free to bor­row the pledge idea for your school. 

The 20 Minute Cleanup is a flex­i­ble and easy project.  We’re aim­ing for April 14^th, but if that par­tic­u­lar day doesn’t work for you, any day that week is fine.  There’s still plenty of time to form a team or do a cleanup on your own.   Offices, schools, HOA’s, sports teams, Scouts, any­one can get out­side for 20 min­utes and make a dif­fer­ence.  Please email your results to 20minutecleanup@howardcountymd.gov and we’ll thank you on GCS and let you know the over­all results.

Thanks!