Service project turned lesson time!

 As part of starting off school year we did a service day where we went and picked up trash at Conejo Creek in Newbury Park. It was just perfect for our kids since they now understand why we need to pick up trash for our environment.

 Here I am with Bruce, my middle boy.

 Here is Jack waiting ever so patiently for the man to tell us when we can start.

Here we are picking up the little things we could find in the park and discussing what can be recycled and what is trash.

Here is daddy with the 3 boys enjoying their hot dogs! We didn't know we would be given lunch and a free shirt for doing this, that was nice. We were happy to get out and go walking and cleaning for this event. Since we picked up trash at the waterway itself, it gave us the opportunity to show the kids why we need to keep the waterways clean. We saw lots of ducks who flew away from us and rabbit droppings which showed the boys that every animal lives off of the water here and if it gets polluted they cannot drink and will end up dying. We also learned how fertilizer is harming the environment.  If we fertilize our lawns then water them, the water runs off into the street which ends up collecting into the water runoff throughout our cities and towns. That fertilizer then helps populate the algae that is already in the water and makes it grow at an alarming rate and when there is too much of it that cannot be sustained by the water then it dies off and creates bacteria which turns into diseases which affects all of us. That was a real eye opener! This is something we will be learning throughout this year and already my boys go to the park and pick up trash to do their part!