Letter to the Editor

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

                                                       10^th Grade, Orange High School

                                                  Orange, NJ