Trash, Volunteering, and Responsibility

This weekend I participated in a volunteer cleanup of Veterans' Memorial Park. As is typical for volunteer activities in Barrington, it was sparsely attended and by the same handful of people who find time to volunteer despite most being full time workers.

This event got me once again thinking about volunteering and civic responsibility and the myopic “me me” focus of our western culture. To me, the lack of wider participation in this or any town volunteer activity is a symptom of the weakening of community responsibility that exists in Barrington and in many other places, I suspect.

Now I am not a serial volunteer, although lately it seems I am becoming one. I volunteer on the town’s Conservation Commission (have for over 12 years) and just recently, as part of my Master Gardener training, have taken on volunteering in Roger Williams Parks at a community garden (raising food for a food bank) and at the Botanical Garden (which has no funds for upkeep of their extensive plantings). These things take time, and I work full time, but I am happy to use what free time I have to contribute to the greater good.

When I started volunteering, one of my main goals was to teach my now-nearly-adult daughter that one does not do things just for money, that giving of yourself to your community is an important and satisfying experience. I think she’s gotten the message, although she is still somewhat enamored by her ability to make money while being a full-time student. That’s enough for now.

Volunteering imparts a feeling of responsibility and stewardship towards one’s larger community. Be it cleanup of public lands, helping those who are less fortunate, or leading in some other community way, one realizes that many things just will not happen unless one does it oneself, and that a community cannot be kept up by the few (and increasing fewer and fewer) paid public servants. Volunteering fosters empathy and fellowship; important characteristics for members of a community.

Unfortunately, I don’t see this lesson being taught, or learned, by the youth of this town. This is shown by the ridiculous emphasis on competitive athletics (for which I do not fault the children) to the lack of respect shown towards public lands of this town.

In the two hours over which I picked up trash in Veteran’s Park and along the bike path, I found food wrappers, bottles and cans, styroform cups, landscaping waste, mysterious pharmaceutical paraphernalia, cigarette butts, few Christmas decorations, a golf ball, and a decaying cooked chicken. Most were solitary discards of indifferent or lazy people using the park, but I also came across (and cleaned as best I could), a “social site,” a clearing made by teens to capture some privacy and do what teens do. I was a teen and no angel, so I don’t judge except to say that smoking, drinking, and getting high in the woods is lame and ultimately not in your best interest. 

But what I was really offended by was the disregard shown to the land.  Cups, cans, bottles and straws strewn everywhere, styrofoam methodically ripped into little pieces that were impossible to collect, smashed plastic containers, ripped baggies, and some evidence of human excretion.  Except the latter, which should have never been released, these are things that could have (should have) been carried out once the pow-wow was finished. But the users opted to leave the trash there. I don’t know how they thought this stuff was going to go away; I doubt they were thinking of my public service.

Had some youth shown up to help with the cleanup, I would have believed they were taking some responsibility for the mess, albeit delayed, but not one youth shown up. And except for some boy scouts that help regularly with public land activities, youth rarely show up. But, then again, neither do many adults. That’s a pity and a concern. Children will learn from their parent’s actions, and if we want our children to think beyond themselves, then we adults need to take the time to do the same. I hope when the opportunity for volunteering comes around again that more adults and youth choose to participate and consider the intangible benefits that come from giving of oneself.