$217,000 worth of Litter

This morning I had an impromptu idea: I wanted my kids to do something productive and also make their community a little better. I told them we were going to pick up trash along the sidewalks to the high school. We live near the high school and watch the kids travel back and forth each day. I noticed the teenagers like to leave their mark (garbage) along the way. So with lots of grumbling and very little excitement the boys joined me. I tried to make it a contest to see who could be the first one to collect 50 pieces of garbage. Before I knew it they were in to it and they were amazed at how much garbage was laying around. (I can't imagine how bad it would be if it weren't landscaped and maintained by the landscapers each week). So I supervised the kids making sure they didn't pick up any C#$dom wrappers, because that happened once when we were at the High school playing tennis together as a family. (nice, not!!!!!)

Lessons we learned:

• Christian let us know that... "We collected 217 pieces of garbage so that is like $217,000 worth of litter, that is if they enforced the littering law of $1,000." he's my math guy.
• Carson decided that it was a lot of fun and wants to know if we can do it every week.
• Jacob said "Man I can't believe how much people litter. Now I know not to litter." then he continued by saying, "Christian If we ever see people trying to litter let's get mad at them and tell them not to."
• I learned that easy lessons can have a big impact on kids.
• Mark and baby E learned how to write a church talk and take a nap. They didn't join us because Mark needed to write his monthly Sunday talk which he just loves to do. And baby E is too yummy to be near garbage and should be at home sleeping in his crib.

Here are the boys with $217,000 worth of litter