Spring Break 2011

Garbage! Garbage! Everywhere, garbage! It was spilling on to my kitchen floor. It was all over the Mika office. Maple Learning Center and The Hope Center had piles of it. My car was starting to smell bad from the garbage in my trunk. I collected it. The Mika staff collected it. The students and the neighbors collected it…now what? What should we do with all this garbage?

Make art, of course! That was the reason we collected it in the first place. Over Spring Break we ran a three day program talking about Respect, Justice and Beautification – values that our neighbors have decided are important in our community. We talked about why we need to keep our community trash free. We talked about the importance of reusing, recycling, conservation and sustainability. Armed with paper bags and rubber gloves we all picked up trash and counted the large items that had been dumped in our neighborhood alleys. We made tall sculptures out of garbage – creations made of newspaper, milk jugs, tin foil, cereal boxes, bottle caps and toilet paper rolls. They were amazing! We also made useful boxes from egg cartons to hold our treasures. They were colorful and sparkly.

Finally, we set out with shovels, hoes, rakes and trowels and planted flats of flowers to brighten our centers. Thirty kids in dirt and water can be a challenge but in the end, it looked incredible! We did it for ourselves, we did it for our community, we did it for God. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to Him.” We wanted to please God by showing Him that we are grateful for His creation and that we can be responsible for caring for it too. If you ask our students, they would tell you that Spring Break 2011 was a success! If you stop by and see our gardens, you will probably agree!