September’s Clean Planet Day took place in the same neighborhood park where our tree seems doing quite well. We had the idea to talk to the moms who do Zumba on Tuesdays at the park, and asked if they’d like to bring their kids to a Clean Planet Play Date.
They said yes, and this became our focus for the month. Verónica and I felt like doing something with her family alone, (while fun and rewarding) would be playing small. So it felt good to invite other members of the community to come find out what Clean Planet is all about and plant seeds for how they might like to participate with us going forward. Veronica’s creative curriculum for this “play date” featured using props - a wooden fish and a paper butterfly. She acted out a story where the fish was sad because the river was dirty, and full of trash. It also was having a hard time breathing having to as it was a filter out the dirty water through its gills.
I was reminded in watching Veronica deliver this program to the kids how powerful storytelling is to share a message – whether to kids or to adults. Though San Miguel de Allende is in the mountains, we discussed how easy it is for trash to end up in rivers, many of which eventually flow out to sea.
As a reminder that human activity on land impacts the ocean, Veronica gifted each of the children a seashell. My favorite part of this Clean Planet Day (besides playing red light, green light with the kids, of course) was watching each of them put the seashell up to their ear to listen for “the ocean.”
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