Both me and my husband have been very concerned about how to be a conscious, productive, inspiration to our community for quite some time. A lot of our awareness came from my husband's past mayoral race a few years ago. Although he didn't win, his contribution did inspire many others to get more involved with their community and participate in voting. With so much going in on the news on such a national and global scale - people tend to get out of sorts regarding certain politics. But yet, I am finding more and more people that know less about what's going on in their own backyard or even participate in their community's growth. Who's your mayor, who's on city council, what is your city doing to become sustainable, are you purchasing from businesses in your city, are you improving your home's value through keeping up with it properly, and so on?
One particular thing that has had a lasting impact on us was "Keep Carrollton Beautiful", a non-profit organization for our city that assists with keeping the greenbelts green and the city trash-free. We had participated at an annual clean-up event about a year and a half ago and in 1-mile city area, we couldn't believe the amount of trash that was accumulated. Bags and Bags of trash - everything from fast-food to church programs - you name it! I hadn't really thought too much about the trash in our city. I wasn't one that littered or anything so it never crossed my mind until this particular experience. We knew several of the individuals in our group from the gym. It felt great when we were done to know that we had properly disposed of over 20 bags of trash in this one little area. But it's also a little disturbing to know that this was just a small portion of our city that needed cleaning up. A short-while later, I was driving down the side of a main road in our city and noticed that one of the women that was in our clean-up group was picking up trash. I knew that she had been walking a lot as she trains for the 3 day Susan G. Komen walk and apparently was using that walking time to pick up trash. Truly an inspiration! That inspiration carried over into my both me and my husband - especially him. He felt like if she could take care of that area - why weren't we taking care of ours. My husband takes my 16 month old son on a daily morning walk just to get the day started off right. He walks past a church, high school, park and fast-food area in just 30 minutes. Every time he would walk by, he would feel guilty for just leaving the trash there especially after seeing our gym friend. So, once or twice a week he has grabbed a trash bag and picks up what he can until he and Cade arrive at the park. He too felt inspired to use that walking time to pick up trash. He has had so many people stop him and tell him what a great community member he is, offer to give him money, asked to talk to someone's kids, and just wave (or honk) to say thanks. Even without the recognition - it has truly provided him (and me) a sense of community involvement and inspiration. It's such a small but significant part of taking care of your own community.
So I take this moment to ask you if you can take just a small part of your day or week or even month to take care of your own community. Learn and participate about your local government and events. What small little action could you do to help your city flourish, grow and be a better community for those behind you? I would love to hear about your involvement. Do you already do something to help your city be better? Let's share and read all the wonderful things our online community is doing in our own communities to be an inspiration to ourselves and others. You might find something you could do that you hadn't thought of before.
If you'd like to learn more about the Great American Clean-Up in your area - click on this link.
Thanks for letting me share! I look forward to hearing from you! Have a great day!
In love & kindness,
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