🎧 Wave Reads For You
The end of the school year was just around the corner for Mrs. Thomas and her Grade 6 class. Everyone was very excited! There was lots of chatter about summer holidays and being free from homework for two whole months!
Despite the enthusiasm, however, the teacher sensed anxiety. These kids were now old enough to be aware of what was going on in the world. It was hard to watch TV or social media without hearing doom and gloom. Whether it was about war or climate change, poverty or homelessness, the news was all too real. And all too close to home.
Mrs. Thomas decided to open up discussion about some of these troubling topics. But instead of just reinforcing the problems, she urged her students to think about solutions. “What can we all do in our own way to better the world we live in? To protect our country, our community, and our families?” She asked them to become influencers for good. Then she suggested that they write about their findings and experiences to share with the class as their first assignment in the Fall.
Fast forward to September. The kids rose to the challenge. These are their stories:
Saving the Planet, One Old Toaster at a Time
By Sha’nique, age 12
Okay, so here’s the thing: I’m just a kid. Until my mom lets me have TikTok on my phone, I can’t make very many decisions on my own. But I do care about the planet. Like, a lot. I’ve seen all the stuff about climate change, plastic in the oceans, and polar bears looking sad on melting icebergs. And I thought, “Well, somebody should do something.” Then Mrs. Thomas made me realize: I am somebody.
I sat around for a couple of weeks, waiting for some kind of inspiration. Finally, one night perched in front of the TV with my mom, I watched a fun movie called Garage Sale Mysteries. I had found my calling!
I imagined rows of tables as far as the eye could see, with neighbours mingling on their driveways, swapping treasures. Everybody would be happy and pumped that they were reusing and recycling things that might otherwise end up in landfills. Plus, I figured I could make a little money to buy a new bike. Saving the planet and getting a bike? Genius.
My first target was my own room. My mom said it looked like a landfill site, which was rude but also kind of true. I had clothes I’d outgrown, books I’d already read, and about 47 stuffed animals that I hadn’t touched in years. If I could get this much stuff from just my own small space, imagine what loot people would find in their entire houses.
“How hard could it be to set up a neighbourhood sale?”, I wondered. Spoiler alert: it was really hard! There was a lot of work just getting people interested. Then choosing a weekend when everybody wasn’t already booked. Then convincing people to part with their old junk. I learned that adults are way more complicated than I thought.
I also quickly learned that there are rules. Apparently, you can’t just throw a giant sale without checking with the city. There are permits. And advertising. And signs to put up AND take down. Who knew?
I realized that this would need to be a team effort. Here’s how I made it happen:
Step One: I made a plan. I called a family meeting – actually, it was dinner – to make sure I could count on my parents, my brother and my sister. They were all as psyched as I was! Together, we wrote down everything we’d need.
Step Two: We made a budget. Mom agreed to advance money for supplies, as long as she was reimbursed from the sale. She also agreed to bake cookies and make lemonade, and my sister volunteered to run the snack sale. Dad suggested we ask each neighbour to pay five dollars towards advertising. He is very smart.
Step Three: We talked to neighbours. I went door-to-door with my best “I’m just a sweet kid saving the planet” pitch. My mom used a more adult approach to work her network.
Step Four: We settled on a date. Everybody wanted a different weekend. I ended up just choosing a date when my family – my most important employees – were available. Then we set a rain date.
Step Five: We made it official. My mom helped with the city permit thing. My dad said he’d take care of building tables with my brother using sawhorses, old doors and picnic tables.
Step Six: Advertising. We called the local newspaper and placed an ad. I drew a giant recycling symbol on big cards and wrote: “Neighbourhood Garage Sale! Save the Planet, Find a Treasure!” I taped them to lampposts and bulletin boards.
Step Seven: Got people involved. I assigned kids in the neighbourhood to be greeters and snack sellers. I kept reminding people as the date approached and offered help to people who needed it.
We started getting phone calls from people we did not know. Four families from another street asked if they could join in. People offered to bring goodies for what had turned into a bake sale.
The morning of the sale, I woke up at six o’clock. My street looked like a festival. Tables everywhere, boxes of books, racks of clothes, even a canoe.
We said the sale would start at nine o’clock, but buyers came by early looking for bargains. Dealers were cruising for antiques. Like Mrs. Patel’s old blender… it was gone in five minutes. My friend Emma sold all her Beanie Babies to a collector. I sold my stack of Goosebumps books for $20.
I found it fascinating how everybody was looking for a deal. A guy tried to bargain down my mom’s old coffee maker from $3 to $2.50. She goes, “Sir, you can’t even buy a single coffee for that price!”.
It was a hot day, so the lemonade was popular. We lost track of how many urns we made. Late in the afternoon, cans of beer appeared in the lemonade cooler and my Dad pulled out the lawn chairs for his buddies. Somebody tried to buy them.
Then something unexpected happened. Our neighbours started carrying over salads and sandwiches. Here came Mr. Patel rolling his barbecue down the street. Mom placed a tablecloth over the picnic table and soon it was piled high with the best pot luck dinner ever. Neighbours who’d never talked before were chatting like old friends.
So here’s the big takeaway: making a difference doesn’t have to be huge. You don’t have to invent solar panels or clean the ocean by yourself. You can start small. Every reused toaster, every recycled book, every canoe is one less item to end up as landfill. Every lemonade-fueled conversation brings kindness to the community.
And if a 12-year-old girl with no TikTok can organize a neighbourhood-wide event, then anyone can do something.
