Day 5 – Final day of our Plastic Awareness Week

OMG… and I mean that as (Oh My Gosh)!!!  What a fantastic end to an amazing event.  When Carter and Olivia first learned about Beth Terry from Oakland CA and how she tries to live her life “Plastic Free”, they were amazed.  As we followed her and even spoke with her on the phone, we were convinced that her ideas made sense.

Then, when we learned about her “Show Us Your Plastic Trash” Challenge.  Carter and Olivia immediately knew we should do this and we should get their entire school to try it as well.  We also partnered with another amazing company (ConservingNow) who has educational curriculum that could support our weeklong program and help us drive the message home to all the students.  So we purchased all the materials for each class and for all the teachers and launched our Plastic Awareness Week.

Our goal was to foster a higher sense of awareness among the children and their families about the amount of plastic trash we generate.   Our hopes are that children will learn early on about how harmful plastic is and they will grow up supporting change.  And hopefully, they might even help their families do the same.

Today was the finale of our event and I can sincerely say that the results far exceeded our expectations.  The total amount of Plastic Trash we collected for the week was 120-lbs.  Remember, plastic is extremely lightweight and the bulk of the items we collected were single use plastic bags and water bottles, so 120-lbs is a lot of plastic.

We were so overwhelmed by the positive response from all the children and their families.  Everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy the weeklong event and many even asked if we would consider extending the program.  The curriculum was well thought-out and all the children could relate to the intended message.  We had families approach us and to say that this event provided a great vehicle for them to get their whole family involved.

The kids absolutely loved the Bag Monster and they were all quick to tell us how they too kicked the Bag Monster out of their home.  We invited one of the very first companies to join our “Say No To Plastic Bags” Coalition (Polly Sattler from GreenPlate) as our guest speaker and she did a phenomenal job connecting with the kids, and the parents.  She talked about the problem of communities not getting involved in slowing our dependency on plastic and even shared tips from her highly successful 7-Day Challenge, which many families asked to be involved in.

OMG founders Carter and Olivia created a brief skit along with some of their classmates were they got to kick the Bag Monsters butt, and used that opportunity to educate the students further about the harm single use plastic bags have on animals and our environment.  All the students loved that part.

We also invited the founder of a local art gallery, Kathleen Brewer of ‘Artworks On The Square‘ to work with the kids and create a sculpture with all the collected trash that would help convey the importance of reducing our plastic trash.  I think the end results speak for themselves.  The kids did an amazing job and everyone seemed so proud of their participation in the event.

We would like to thank everyone who helped us make this event possible and we welcome any suggestions on how we could have done things different.  120-lbs of plastic trash is amazing enough but the many smiles and the genuine enthusiasm from all the kids and their families, is priceless.

If you are interested in having us create a Plastic Awareness Week event for your school or organization, please send us an email and we will gladly help you out.  If you have an upcoming event and you would like to have the Bag Monster make an appearance,  send us a note and we will see if we can fit that in our schedule as well.

Best regards from all of us at OMG 😉

Testimonial:

Here is a testimonial from Mrs. Margaret (FMS Director) regarding the event:

Dear Parents

We ended our Plastic Awareness week with a wonderful afternoon! The children were able to see their endeavors by creating a sculpture of a sea turtle out of all the plastics they had collected during the week.

The children learned about recycling, protecting the environment and how they can make an impact in the world! What a great lesson for all!!

Thanks to OMG and their dedication to helping teach children the importance of improving the environment.