Did you know that it takes 1 million years for glass and 300 to 500 years for disposal diapers to disintegrate in a landfill? Just because you throw something away does not mean that it will go away.
Whitney United Methodist Church, Boise, Idaho, held Vacation Church School on July 29th through August 1st, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. Lorrie Baer, Education Coordinator, organized and directed this event. Lorrie was inspired by a web-site called Kids for Saving Earth (KSE) an environmental education curriculum for all ages at www.kidsforsavingearth.org. This site was formed by Clinton Hill’s parents after their son died of cancer. Clint was a child with a dream to be a Defender of the Planet and a Nature Lover. His parents wanted to keep their son’s dream going and for everyone to learn about their earth and to help protect it.
Thirty-eight children, from various parts of the city, ranging from age 3 years on up registered for all or part of this Go Green event. Every child was provided an ecological tee-shirt. The children enjoyed prayers, music and story time, and were provided a meal every night along with a snack. They painted gourd birdhouses (Lorrie grew the gourds in her own garden), made their own paper, created sun-sensitive pages, made trash mobiles, made their own Garbage Can Music Band (instruments were made from recyclable items), and participated in composting live worms.
The children watched an informative movie all about recycling trash called “The Rotten Truth”. Phyllis Ross, our Church Organist/Pianist and Administrative Assistant, wrote our very own Garbage Band song for the children to sing along and to play their instruments too. Jody Baer read the book entitled “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss. Jennie Rylee, Foothills Learning Center, and Master Gardner, taught a class on composting worms and Cass Meisner assisted her. Lorrie ordered real live worms called Red Wigglers from Yelm, Washington.
To insure the success of Vacation Church School much assistance was needed. Whitney had 30 people helping and among those 6 were youth helpers.
Everyone had a wonderful time and learned so much about how to care for this beautiful Earth that God created for us. Let’s all be inspired to take care of it!
Written by Linda Jordan
Here are the lyrics to the song they sang,
We are the band, the garbage can band (3 times)
Marching, marching for Jesus,
(spoken)
Plastic! Paper! Tin Cans! Junk!
Put it all together for a garbage can band
(spoken)
RECYCLE! REDUCE! REUSE! SAVE!
Put it all together for a garbage can band.
God made the air
So let’s keep it clean.
God made the land
So let’s keep it green.
God made the sea
Just for you and me
So we can all live together in harmony.