Making A Difference

Making a difference in your own community back home has a lot of meaning but what is more meaningful is making a difference in someone else's community. This week I seized an opportunity to make a difference in the London area. I joined a club here at the Richmond University called The Green Project. I was invited to help clean up a section of the Thames River. When I got to the clean up site, much to my surprise a lot of volunteers showed up. Some were students, some were young children and some were older community volunteers. The first thing we did was put on our waiters. Everyone including myself looked completely ridiculous in our shoulder high waiters. After putting on the waiters we signed in and went straight into the water. Our job was to reach into the river to pick up any trash on the bottom of it. I thought the worst things I would pull up would be paper bags and some cans but I was so wrong. After several hours of cleaning the river, we pulled out rollerblades, a bicycle, beer bottles, radios, a safe, practically an entire car which included the engine, several tires, a hood, an axel and a transmission. We even pulled out an entire bath tub. It was so sad seeing what kind of destruction people are capable of. You can read about pollution but you can never fully understand what it truly does to the environment. Actually picking up the trash yourself changes your entire perspective on everything. It impacted me so much that I cant even throw a napkin or a wrapper on the ground anymore. That water was so polluted which trash it is so hard not to get mad. Many companies just dump their trash into waterways because it is the cheapest and easiest solution to their waste problems. Businesses in the modern world can be so inconsiderate when it comes to the environment dumping whatever wherever they want. As a business student at Western New England it is difficult for me to see that companies can be so socially irresponsible. To think that these companies our the models for many business students today is kind of scary. Cleaning the Thames this week was overall just an incredible experience for me. Making a difference in one community has an effect on other communities. We only cleaned one part of the river but with the combined help of many other groups something even more positive will be able to come of this.