Resident launches campaign to #KeepCantonClean

Erin Connor and her older daughters, Addison, Brynn and Brooke, were walking down Washington Street in January on their way to pick up the youngest Connor daughter, Charleigh, at Canton Community Kindergarten (CCK) when the garbage they saw on the sidewalk and in the street led to a conversation about who was doing the littering and what could be done about it.

The Connor sisters are doing their part to help clean up Canton.

“We were literally stepping over trash to get there,” Connor said.

Her daughters asked her why people wanted to leave trash on the sidewalk and in the street and why there were so many beer bottles and mini alcohol bottles, known as nips, on the ground. “They learned so much that day about nips,” she said.

By the time they arrived at CCK, Connor knew that this was a teachable moment. She asked the staff for a trash bag and gloves. Then, as she and her four daughters walked the half mile back to their home, they picked up every piece of trash they saw along Washington Street and in their neighborhood. By the time they reached their home, they had completely filled the bag. That experience, combined with Connor’s lifelong passion for nature and the environment, inspired her to think of a way to ask others to help keep Canton clean.

Earth Day is Monday, April 22. Connor’s plan is to encourage Canton families to pledge one hour of their time between April 22 and April 28 to take a trash bag and gloves and pick up trash and litter from their neighborhood or another area in town or take a trash bag to a baseball game or other outdoor activity. Those who take part should also take a photo of themselves cleaning up an area and submit it to the Canton Citizen for later publication. Connor is thinking of it as Earth Week for the town.

A few years ago, Connor and her husband, Canton paramedic and firefighter Doug Connor, took a trip to Hawaii, a state whose natural beauty impressed Connor greatly. Upon returning to Canton, she was struck by the litter that people left on the ground.

“It opened my eyes up to how much trash and litter there is in our town,” she said. “I do think it’s gotten worse.”

She mentioned Bailey Street, Washington Street, and the areas around the schools as places where she has seen litter or has heard that people leave litter and trash, as well as along the ground on the exit ramp from I-93 to Route 138.

“[Reducing littering] is so important; the presence of litter brings more litter,” Connor said. “We need to stop with that idea of ‘out of sight out of mind. If we don’t see it it won’t affect us.’ I want to bring awareness. If we can do that and they see people cleaning up or not as much litter, hopefully they won’t throw a cup out the window.”

Connor recently posted her concerns on the Everything Canton Facebook page, suggesting that people join in to clean up the town as spring starts and also asking people to post areas that they felt needed to be cleaned up. Dozens of people responded, including Barbara Theodore, whose husband, Tom, is a Canton selectman. He read Connor’s post to the other selectmen during a meeting.

“We all need to do our part,” Connor said. “I just want to bring awareness.”

Connor said that the area that she and her daughters walk from their home to CCK has remained fairly clean since they picked up the trash a few months ago. They have continued to pick up litter when they see it and she has noticed that her children are picking up trash on their own. When she talks to them about the environment, she uses two favorite quotes. The first is a Native American proverb: ‘We don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.’ The second is, ‘There is no Planet B.’

“We are better than this,” Connor said of the amount of trash in town. “We can’t stay like this. We need to change this.”

Connor’s #KeepCantonClean campaign starts April 22 and ends April 28. Families who wish to submit photos should send them to submissions@thecantoncitizen.com.

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=53794

Posted by Mary Ann Price on Apr 5 2019. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.