Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Make a Difference at the Corner Bus Stop

The Toole family lives right down the street from the bus stop. Daddy Toole is the most frequent bus rider in the family, but Will is a big fan of the bus and loooooves to watch buses, ride on buses, point out buses, and pretend he is a bus driver. He also enjoys "The Wheels on the Bus," so you could say that buses are a pretty big interest of his right now.

Today our project was to clean up our local bus stop. Mommy Toole walks to work and passes this bus stop every morning and afternoon. Since we also live pretty close to a college, it is a very popular bus route and this bus stop is pretty well-used and, unfortunately, well-trashed.

Sometimes when we walk by it on the way to the playground, Will points it out "look at all the trash!" 

So, here was the plan: pick up the trash and get the bus stop back to a pleasant place to sit and wait. 

We began with some supplies: 

** two plastic grocery bags (although, at the end, I realized I should have double bagged them)
**four pair of rubber gloves 
**two rubber bands

Why the rubber bands? Well, they don't seem to make disposable gloves small enough for 3-year-old hands. So, the rubber bands were there to hold on Will's gloves, like so:


We walked the 1/2 block to the bus stop and found this: 



I think you can already see the trash behind the bench, but let's zoom in: 

As Will said, "How sad that some people put their trash on the ground!"

So, we picked up and bagged up the cups, wrappes, straws, bottles, cans, tons and tons of cigarette butts, and unidentifiable other junk.

The most intersting piece of trash we found was this one:

It's a bicycle seat. Allright, it was not that interesting, but after 248 cigarette butts, it was unique.

And here was our haul--2 bags of trash (check out the rebar sticking out of the right bag) and 1 bicycle seat. It was a good day!

When we were all finished, I asked Will if we had done a good job. He smiled at me and said, "Our bus stop is pretty now!"

Mommy and Willy Toole, bus stop beauticians.



Monday, February 2, 2009

Show a little heart


Will and I are working on a project for Valentine's Day. Along with cards for family, friends, and teachers, we are making some cards to send to other people. Since Will's at a stage where the cards are kind of generic (i.e., he's not writing anything in them, mostly just gluing down hearts that I have cut out for him!), I haven't figured out exactly where they are going yet, but some thoughts are:

1. The army hospital (the school I worked at last year did "Valentine's for Vets" and sent cards to veterans who were long-term residents of the hospital...it was apparently well received and the social workers told us how happy the guys and gals were to get them)

2. A nursing home

3. Service folks--those fire fighters we love so much, the letter carrier, etc.

4. Suggestions????

Here is Will working on a card at his little desk. He is happily coloring and will add some hearts later. He writes his name, and sometimes some random letters, too. It's truly a child's work, and I know that anyone who receives it will know it came from the heart.

Anyone else doing something special for Valentine's Day to help let someone know they are on your mind??