268 South Center
St.
Orange, NJ 07050
May 5, 2012
Editor
Star Ledger News
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mr. Editor,
The phrase, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,”
never dies for me. But in this
generation of ours we live in a world of filth, which needs to be taken care
of. My English class recently took on this assignment of community problems;
where we found out the problems that were facing our communities and tried to
do something about it. The problem I was able to identify was “littering.” What
I discovered from my research from “Cincinnati is Beautiful” was that people
who litter sometimes have no sense of ownership, meaning that they say, “This
is not ours, so we might as well destroy it.” Also I found out that some people
do it because they think somebody will do it for them, which is quite a rude
and very arrogant way of thinking. Basically, what I’m trying to do is get
everyone to see how littering affects our environments and even us. The goal of
this research is to minimize, if not stop the littering of our surroundings by
doing little things that can really help make big changes. So far, I’ve created
a blog, which first helps put this problem of mine out to the public, because
almost everyone now uses the internet. I’ve had an interview with the head of
my school’s janitorial service, Mr. Louie to see his point of view on littering
and I’ve also had an interview with a student from my school. I’ve also tried
on my own, to encourage people to use the trash cans more and try recycling
things, like plastic cups and bottles. I chose this particular issue because I
felt it had to be brought to the attention of everyone and also I saw that what
we were turning our surroundings into was egregiously killing our race “slowly
but surely.” Also I felt that if anything was to be done, the community leaders
had to know about this. Although I’m starting little, with some more support
and hard work I can go big, for it is as Malcolm X said, “if you want
something, you better make some noise.” I really hope that you consider all
that I have spoken about in this letter, because a clean surrounding is
salutary to our health.
Hilda Agyekum
10th
Grade, Orange High School
Orange, NJ
