THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506080179
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THUMBS UP
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
FROM THE BEGINNING, things didn't go quite as planned for College Park Elementary School's ad hoc group known as the Level Green Clean-Up Club.
Despite a project that developed more complications than a computer with a terminal case of Michelangelo virus, one thing did come shining through.
The fifth-graders at College Park showed initiative, perseverance and caring.
``This wasn't a project that I suggested to the students,'' teacher Nancy Henderson said, ``this is one they brought to me.''
The ``they'' in this case were fifth-graders Erika Steward and Felicia Jones who had seen something in a canal in the nearby Level Green neighborhood that had upset them.
``A lot of baby ducks were dying,'' Erika said, ``and their moms were so sad.''
The youngsters figured that maybe if they cleaned up the land along the water the baby ducks wouldn't get sick. They asked Henderson for her help in getting the project off the ground.
Henderson told them it sounded like a good idea but they'd have to talk with the school's principal, Cletus Griffin, first. The youngsters came back from their meeting with Griffin with wide eyes, big smiles and a question that came as no surprise to Henderson.
``He said we could do it, but we have to have a sponsor first. Will you be it?'' the students asked. Henderson agreed, navigated the way through the paper trail of permission slips and such and the project was off and running.
Actually, off and flapping might be a more apt description.
First there was the matter of the waterway where the baby ducks were dying. The youngsters and Henderson both had assumed that it was public property. It wasn't. ``It was private land,'' Henderson said, ``so we couldn't go in and clean it up.''
And there was also the matter of how much good such a clean-up would do, at least so far as the ducks were concerned. The group learned later that the babies were probably victims of a disease that was beyond their power to control.
Still, they were in the mood to do something serious about environmental problems around their neighborhood.
``They practiced first cleaning up the school grounds,'' Henderson said. Armed with trash bags and plastic gloves they set about cleaning up the lawns and playgrounds, leaving the area one of the tidiest school yards in the city.
Since they couldn't clean up the privately owned canal banks, they made plans to do the next best thing. They scheduled a clean-up at Level Green Neighborhood Park.
Nine o'clock last Saturday morning, to be exact - the precise moment when the first drop of rain fell to signal the arrival of a deluge that would last until afternoon.
Even with rain threatening Erika and Felicia showed up to help get the park shipshape. So did Charles Watford and Keri Korzensky along with Henderson and substitute teacher John Ebert.
By 9:20, with the rain beginning to fall in blinding torrents, it was obvious that their grand clean-up plan had hit yet another snag. The rest of the morning's work had to be canceled.
So how did the dedicated band of young environmentalists feel about their project?
A little disappointed, perhaps, but on the whole, pretty good. In the short time between the first drops and the gully-washer the fifth-graders had filled three large bags with bottles, cans and the kind of stuff best described as just plain yucky. They also found a few keepers - coins, a couple of baseballs and a pair of pretty good sun glasses.
And they had a few words of wisdom for their peers.
``Please don't make it harder for us by doing things like throwing bottles and breaking them,'' Felicia said.
They also think other kids their age should get involved. ``It's really fun,'' Charles said, then added a more serious note.
``It's mostly about responsibility, responsibility for the environment.'' he concluded. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Chaunte Rucker, left, and Felicia Jones, fifth-graders at College
Park Elementary School, clean flower beds on the school grounds. The
project began as an idea to clean up the canal in nearby Level Green
neighborhood where baby ducks were dying.
by CNB