Volunteering has always been a passion point for me. In high school, I was very active in Key Club and would spend my Saturday mornings waking up at 5:00 a.m. to help at various community events. Unfortunately over the years, life (work, kids, time-you name it) has gotten in the way of being able to make a firm commitment to help out the way I would like to. I was starting to get down on myself because I know that as parents we lead by example and I wanted my girls to grow up having that innate drive to help out in our communities.
That is until I was driving one morning and heard a voice on the radio say, “Make your pledge to get your ten!” and instead of tuning out most commercials I listened in. If you haven’t heard the commercial, Reverse Litter is an initiative that the idea is to pick up ten pieces of litter on every Tuesday. No firm commitment (beyond your word) is required and all you need is to walk out your front door with something to collect your trash in!
My four year old and I are two of the newest people to make the pledge but it was so fun for me to see her get excited about helping out each week. We walked around our neighborhood picking up our ten pieces each, talking about how we have to be very careful not to litter in the future. Fortunately, our neighborhood didn’t have much trash so it took quite awhile for us to walk around to find enough litter to uphold our end of the agreement. During our walks each week, we come up with different areas she wants to go (the park, White Rock lake, Chick-fil-a) to pick up her ten pieces of litter.
It isn’t much effort but I’m hoping that this sets the ground work for my daughter to have a compassionate heart and desire to help out in her community. On our last walk, we even met another family who joined in and helped out at our local park! What a better way to meet new friends and help out? One day I hope that my priorities shift to allow for more room for us as a family to become more routinely involved in greater and larger volunteer efforts-but for right now, this is a great step in the right direction!
Want to pledge your Ten on Tuesday pledge?
Make the commitment here!
