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What
Are You Doing About THIS Mayor of Camden?
by
Marion Churchill
"Glass,
glass, glass," yawned Janee, one of our young students,
as she struggled to put on gardening gloves. As usual, in
order to set up for our outdoor humane education class we
started out by clearing the area of the endless debris first.
"…and
hey, look these are everywhere…"
Instantly
all eyes shot to the ground staring at something we didn't
expect to find, let alone collect.
"Let's
stick to a 10-square-foot area, otherwise our collection won't
make any sense to anyone," I said, while looking down
at tiny, multicolored bags we just hadn't noticed before.
Empty little crack bags. Used up by whomever to create an
elusion for the moment. Ending in frustration and anger.
Kareem
held up our colorful collection now jammed into a 7x8 plastic
bag and asked: "Can anyone be kind and considerate if
they're on this?" Having made a brand new discovery about
drug use, the kids answered their own questions. They looked
at each other, then us, and somberly shook their heads.
Latina
and Simere took the bag from Kareem; they straightened their
T-shirts and with great eloquence addressed all of us: "What
are you going to do about THIS Mayor of Camden?"
Damian
took the lead by asking for pencil and paper first. "Let's
write everything down. Everything that bothers us…let's
send the bag so they can see."
The
kid's letters talked about violence, homeless animals, homeless
people, drugs, trash, stealing. That they wanted their park
to be safe for them, for their dogs and cats and for the squirrels
and birds. Or, just to be able to run barefoot through the
grass. Then they went on to tell us about such a thing as
Fry-days, a day when homeless animals are doused with gasoline
and set on fire. Live kittens that are thrown into dumpsters
and cats they had seen with syringes stuck in their backs.
Little
Tarik wrote: "Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council Members:
I have been thinking how to tell you about the violence in
the world. Would you listen? From, Tarik."
That
afternoon the entire unfolding was acted out in the form of
a puppet show. The mayor and city council were depicted as
scared-looking people puppets and the kids represented themselves
as animal puppets.
It
was one day during our summer humane education program. Just
one day and we learned so much.
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of Page
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