UWS School Takes To The Streets To Clean Up The Neighborhood

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — As most Upper West Siders were enjoying their first cups of coffee Sunday, the 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds of the Purple Circle Early Childhood School got to work cleaning up the neighborhood.

"We're picking up trash in the neighborhood," 4-year-old Nico told Patch matter-of-factly. "For the good of the neighborhood."

Nico, along with 10 of his classmates and accompanying parents on Sunday, took part in the Purple Circle's school first Neighborhood Clean-Up Day on the Upper West Side.

The idea for the day came from the early-childhood school's involvement with a local project called "Reimagining 103rd Street — Bogart Blvd." Purple Circle is moving soon from its location on the corner of West End and West 100th Street to Broadway and West 103rd Street, and the school decided it should play its part in cleaning up its new environment.

Parents held garbage bags, kids carried trash pickers, everybody wore plastic gloves, and the group set off from West End and West 100th Street at 10 a.m. to clean the surrounding blocks.

No piece of trash was safe.

The determined little garbage collectors left no coffee cup, piece of plastic, candy bar wrapper, or otherwise unidentifiable item on the concrete.

And there was maybe a little bit of help from Mom and Dad.

The morning spent cleaning is part of an education strategy from Purple Circle that includes more than memorizing the ABCs and adding numbers.

"Teachers and children in each classroom develop a list of jobs that they think their classroom community needs. For example, book helpers, sweepers, table washers, etc.," Elaine Karas, the executive director of Purple Circle, told Patch. "Through these jobs, children develop a sense of responsibility and ownership. This thread is carried outside of school and into the community."

Previous real-world lessons organized by the school include a drive to donate educational supplies to students in Liberia, a coat drive for local homeless families, a candy drive for U.S. troops, a canned food drive for an Upper West Side pantry; a clothing, food, and hygienic products drive for children held at the U.S. border.

While the idea for the cleanup day came in part from Purple Circle's partnership with the Reimagining 103rd Street, a set of parents from the classroom were the first to put the idea of cleaning up the neighborhood in motion.

It all started from Daniel Stiepleman's griping to his wife, Jessica Hawley, about the families who fled New York City for the suburbs during the coronavirus pandemic, only to disparage the city from behind summer home walls about how it was unlivable.

The couple's daughter is a student at Purple Circle.

"She said, 'If you don't want to us to be the kind of people who complain that the city is dirtier than it used to be, then let's be the kind of people who help clean it up,'" Stiepleman told Patch.

The pair brought the Clean-Up Day idea to Purple Circle, where Karas and the rest of the school's leadership were happy to help.

So the next time you are walking around a block on the Upper West Side that looks particularly clean, don't forget that it might have been a determined group of 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds whom you have to thank for it.

You can find out more about the Purple Circle Early Childhood School on its website.