The pandemic has impacted our lives in an unprecedented way. It has significantly disrupted social life and the global economy. The Urbana STEMM and EKAL youth wanted to create awareness among their peers, and at the same time keep our common areas clean and safe. Some of us, such as Azhan, Reshma, Anushka, Niharika, and Dhruv took a lead and under the supervision of club leader Dr. Amit Kumar and other parents planned a spring cleaning event on April 3rd, 2021.
We discussed the locations to clean and marked on our map. To involve young kids from the community we invited them to present the facts on environmental challenges we are facing today.
On April 3rd, we went around a few locations that required greater attention. It took us a few hours to complete the cleaning and we found many plastic bottles, plastic bags, pizza boxes, tennis balls, tape, papers, and surprisingly a twenty-dollar bill that we plan to donate to a non-profit organization. The biggest lesson learned was to take ownership of our neighborhood to keep it clean and healthy.