Eco-Minded Family Cleans Up Local Community

Earth Day for the Arbuckle-Hockensmith family isn’t just another day.  To their two boys Nolan, 8 and Gavin, 6, they awoke as if it were Christmas morning.

Their mom, Mary Arbuckle said, “the boys greeted me this morning with 'Good morning mom and Happy Earth Day,' along with a big kiss."

After eating a hearty breakfast we packed up for a day of plant gathering, trash collecting and trash sorting.  The first stop was to pick up gloves for trash collecting.  Then we bought some vegetable seeds to start our own mini garden.  After that, we headed to a local business complex parking lot that needed some TLC (tender loving care). 

While cleaning up, we were complimented by passers by saying things like “Great work” and “Thanks for taking care of our Earth." A local business man from the complex stopped to personally thank us too for our efforts.

When I asked my sons why they enjoy Earth Day, Nolan said, “I like to pick up trash to help keep the Earth clean.” And Gavin said, “I celebrate Earth Day because it is a way to help the Earth and save the environment."

“Recycling has always been second nature to our boys because they’ve always been exposed to it," mom Mary Arbuckle said.

Mary Arbuckle, teacher, eco-consultant and mom (not necessarily in that order) continued by saying, “The three things that have inspired us the most was the movie Wall-E, meeting Chris Jordan (an eco-artist and 2008 Earth Day International Eco-ambassador) and reading Dr. Seuss’ book The Lorax.

“Our single bag of trash is always the joke of our neighborhood because our recycled trash outnumbers our "regular” trash by 3 to 1,” said Patch.com photographer Chris Hockensmith. "My wife leads our recycling effort and now has been given the nickname 'recyclopath' because she’ll pick up random pieces of trash that can be recycled as she walks through a parking lot or around the neighborhood. I just smile and shake my head."

Also, this past weekend Lowe's gave away 1 million tree saplings with special bar codes that allow you to register the tree and identify the location where they were planted. The boys replanted ours this weekend and we will move them to another permanent site in one year as directed.

Chris Jordan’s images and story are really worth checking out so I recommend going to his site at www.chrisjordan.com and reading some astounding facts.

Make every day Earth Day!