Mission students celebrate Earth Day
Karen Peterson photo
Amelia Cronk, 7, spreads peanut butter over a pinecone to make a birdfeeder.
Karen Peterson photo
Winners of the elementary coloring contest with an Earth Day theme include, front row from left: Lex Lafrombois and Jack Keast; back row, from left: Izabel Evans, Brynn Pule, Amelia Cronk and Lanie Keast.
Karen Peterson photo
Maleea Stewart paints flowers from recycled paper.
Karen Peterson photo
Trish Corbitt, 8, paints a recycled paper daffodil with the help of SSC members.
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ST. IGNATIUS – Reduce, reuse and recycle was the message Mission students in the Students Serving Community (SSC) group delivered last Sunday during the Earth Day celebration they organized for the community in the Good Old Days Park.
“Earth Day is something that doesn’t get celebrated much around here and we want to change that,” said Susan Magallanes, SSC secretary. “We are trying to teach people ways to make the earth better.”
Cleaning-up the environment benefits everyone, noted SCC member Zach James.
“The earth is important,” he said. “If we don’t keep it clean, it gets more and more polluted and man can’t survive that. We need to recycle, reduce and reuse.”
The group created several crafting booths centered around their environmental message to get people thinking.
“Everything is made with recycled things,” Susan said.
Amelia Cronk, 7, dipped a butter knife into a big jar of peanut butter and spread it over a pinecone.
“It’s for the birds,” she said, after covering the mixture with seeds to make a birdfeeder.
Steven Bravo and Julian Couture worked a booth where people could plant seeds into small pots of dirt to take home.
“Plants and trees help provide oxygen for us to live,” Steven said. “We need people to plant more of them.”
Julian added, “Our environment will die off if we don’t take care of it.”
Allie Kosherbek — an exchange student from Kazakhstan — explained, as she helped people make recycled art, that it is important to take care of the environment no matter where you live.
“Earth Day is important,” she said. “We have to save this world. We have to do our best to make a clean world.”
Shaniya Decker handed out information about local wildlife refuges.
“We need to take care of these places so that we have them for a long time,” she said. “We need to recycle and reuse and make sure that what we use won’t stay here forever, like Styrofoam.”
Tori Peterson helped kids create coffee filter butterflies to inspire people to reuse materials in their homes.
“We don’t want to fill the entire planet up with garbage,” she said. “We should reuse things and make things out of what we have.”
Courtney Heath, SSC member, closed the event with a speech about food waste.
“We think of paper and we think of aluminum but what about food waste?” she asked. “When I throw away mom’s casserole, I don’t feel guilty, but I should. Food waste is a big problem.”
She explained that “wasting food wastes resources” and people should take measures to reduce the amount of food they waste.
“Don’t buy what you won’t eat. If you don’t like broccoli, don’t buy it. Donate what you can’t eat and compost the rest.”
The SCC is a student created organization.
“We are students serving the community by doing community service in a fun way,” Susan said.
Teacher Sara Keast said the program began three years ago.
“A student started this club and it’s gone on from there,” she said. “The original idea behind it was to fill a gap in our community by asking, ‘What are the little things we can do to help?’”
