Embracing community pride through good deeds
Teacher, students volunteer to tidy Grand Falls-Windsor
Dave Noel has been trying to instill environmental friendliness in students at Exploits Valley High for more than a decade.
And it’s working.
The high school teacher has been cleaning up in the area long before it was initiated by the Town of Grand FallsWindsor Community Group Spring Clean Up fundraiser. It began about 15 years ago and it isn’t just spring cleaning – it’s a year-round event for him and his students.
Being part of Exploits TrailNet Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to development of safe and sustainable year-round trails in the Exploits Valley and Badger region, it was an effort to keep some of the trails clean.
“It started because there was a need to try to instill some pride in the community and the trails,” Noel says, adding if the land is kept clean, people may be a little less inclined to litter.
“If someone does a little bit and someone else does a little bit, before you know it, you achieve a lot,” Noel says.
Students must get community contribution hours for one of their courses in high school and this way they not only get their volunteer hours, they also see the benefit of participating in community work.
In the spring it’s street clean-up in the town and in the fall they have World River’s Day to clean up large amounts of garbage along the Exploits River.
Eighteen-year-old Luke Rowsell began taking part in World Rivers Day in his Level 1 year.
“It’ll turn your stomach because you’re looking at your community, and somewhere you would like to be proud of, and somewhere you would like to call home, and it looks like a dump,” says Rowsell.
Rowsell, who is set to graduate in June, kept going after he finished his required hours.
“I don’t understand what would go through someone’s head to say, ‘I’m done with this now, I’ll just throw it out the window.’ The way I was raised and the way I preach to everybody around me is ‘wait, find a garbage can, recycle or take it home with you.’”
In the fall Noel and some students do trail walks to help clean.
“That’s a pet peeve of mine, people say, ‘oh it’s a spring event and they clean up,’ but we know that … litterbugs are continual,” said Noel.
Recently, students and Noel collected 70 bags of garbage from Toulette Drive, Lincoln Road and the top of Park Street. They were also out on two separate occasions along Main Street to Kent.
Noel figures about 90 per cent of what they cleaned up was take-out cups. There as also lots of take-out containers, bags, plastic and Styrofoam, and they picked up 13 water bottles filled with cigarette butts along Toulette Drive.
“I lost a bit of faith in some of humanity today,” Rowsell says. “It’s unacceptable, gross and mainly unnecessary.”
People are ruining the province’s otherwise pristine environment, Noel says.
“They treat Newfoundland like a dump,” Noel says. “Every community is talking about Come Home Year. What are you going to come home to? Walk around and see garbage from one end of her to the other. It’s sad.”
“Although it’s nice that you have all these groups who are going out and volunteering and cleaning it up, it would be nice if we didn’t have to do that. If we all do a little bit, then nobody is going to have to do a big job,” added Rowsell.
Noel says littering has increased in the past decade. He believes there needs to be bigger fines and enforcement around the issue.
Rowsell says years ago people didn’t have the knowledge or education around what litter and garbage does to the environment. Now people know how long it takes to biodegrade and how long plastic sits around.
“There’s no need for anybody … to consciously think ‘well I’ll give this a flick out the window while I’m driving,’” Rowsell says, adding we have one earth and “no one else is going to take care of it but us.”