1.) Where are you with your action?
My group and I have now accomplished 3 park clean ups this semester, and I believe 6 in the entire year so far. This past cleanup was done in Glen park, a park with a playground, small forest and open field. We were able to overlook and clean all of it, ending up with our bag being 3/4 of the way full. This is quite a good amount for the size of the park.
2.) What are some successes that you have had? Provide specific examples.
I would classify our most recent clean up as a success for several reasons. While they may be small successes, they made our clean up easier, more efficient and work with ease. Our first success was the amount of garbage that was collected during our outing. As previously mentioned, we filled up 3/4 of a garbage bag after cleaning the whole park which is a really good amount. We tried to pick up all the smaller and larger pieces of trash that were less obvious and because of that we think that we cleaned the park very proficiently. Another reason why we were able to pick up so much and another success was that we had all members of our group there to help us. Dorra, Ceilidh, Itzel and I all came together to do this clean up. This may be the reason we were able to pick up so much trash and be so effective in our action. In addition, the weather was pretty nce, not at all bad which made the clean up more enjoyable for us and overall better because we were able to stay outside for longer.
3.) What are some challenges that you have faced?
We did not face many challenges or complications during our clean up that required problem solving. Overall the clean up went very smoothly and after many clean ups, we have learned how to make our outings effective and efficient. We have learned from our past mistakes such as forgetting our gloves, not all being present, going out in treacherous weather conditions without being prepared, and more. Because of this, our only challenges were finding a location to clean and getting all the members of our group there. To choose a location, we thought of different parks, how easily accessible they were and decided from there which park we could visit this time. Since we did not want to repeat cleaning the same parks and visit different areas to clean, we decided on Glen park and in the end it was a good decision. Once we found the location and the day we made sure everyone could be there by communicating and compromising. FInally, I see how we have learned a lot from our past problem solving and I am glad this lead us to not facing many challenges.
4.) What are you doing next and why?
As the school year as well as the Social Responsibility course is almost done for this year, my group and I have said that we would attempt to gather for one more clean up before summer. So far we have done 6 clean ups in different locations around our city and I am proud of that. I think that the 6 clean ups done during our action project throughout the year has positively impacted us and our community which is amazing and something I am glad we started. If we are able to do one more clean up, then that would be great, however if we are unable to I think we’ve already made a small difference picking up the amount of garbage that we did.