Big sparks. That what I saw in the janitor’s eyes today during my free after lunch. Making sure all the students pick up trash every day after snack and lunch has consistently appeared to be a problem at school. This is also an issue the Leadership Council has been tackling since October. We’ve tried various solutions…in fact, one week in the Winter, snack was completely eliminated because students couldn’t clean up properly. This past week was eventful in a different light…firstly, we decided to initiate a new incentive to encourage people to clean up after themselves, and leadership council hosted a school bake sale.
We hosted a bake sale in order to raise money and buy gift cards for the janitor, Ms. Carla, and the man who maintains our campus, Eddie. The gift was an acknowledgment and appreciation for their work cleaning up our trash when it has always been each individual student’s duty to clean up after themselves. In addition to purchasing gift cards, each homeroom representative in Leadership Council made a card to have their homerooms sign, appreciating the work of Ms. Carla and Eddie. In running a bake sale which revolved around the idea of appreciating others who’ve been picking up the trash and messes we leave on the ground, Leadership Council hoped that this would stick in the minds of our student body.
I’m going to be completely honest…the power of what we had organized didn’t truly touch me until today. During the free block, me and another member of Leadership walked up to the Ms. Carla and handed her the envelop with all the homeroom cards and the gift cards in it. We talked about how much we appreciated her work cleaning up after us and that as a Council, we were trying really hard to improve the issue. Ms. Carla reacted in a way I would have never expected…she teared up. They were tears of happiness for being appreciated. She gave me a strong and warm hug, on the verge of full blown crying. She repeatedly said thank you and I replied thank you, because here was somebody whom very few people in the community talked to, yet still cleaned up after kids whom she barely knew. I will admit, I did talk her prior to today, though I didn’t know her personally, nor did our conversations extend beyond a “Hello. How are you?” question.
In the past, I’ve talked about focusing on the small things to appreciate bigger things in life. Ms. Carla’s reaction to the gift reinforced this for me. Leadership Council made cards which their homerooms signed, brought treats for a bake sale and we purchased gift cards with the money we’d raised. When I think back, the Council is composed of 12 students and when we split up those jobs…each person is doing something small, yet nonetheless significant. Yet every single card in that envelope will make a difference in Ms. Carla’s and Eddie’s life. Respect the small things, and greater goods will arise from them. I like how Gail Godwin put it [I believe I’ve shared this quote before]:
“The more you respect and focus on the singular and the strange, the more aware you become of the universal and the infinite.” ~Gail Godwin
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