Ten-year-old working to keep South Hadley free of litter

Date: 5/18/2021

SOUTH HADLEY –  A 10-year-old South Hadley resident is working to keep his town and community free of litter.

Henry Duncan, with the help of his mom Sarah and the rest of his family, has started a group on Facebook called Keep South Hadley Beautiful. He said he was inspired to start the group after seeing trash in the parking lot of the grocery store. “People walked by, they didn’t care, they walked by it, but I cared,”he said.

Sarah recalled the day and said, “It literally looked like someone had placed nicely on the ground in the parking lot, their lunch from McDonalds. He got out of the car, rolled his eyes and walked the extra 10 steps to throw it away.”

Henry said he began by picking up up the litter on his own street that he noticed. “I started with my street because there was lots of litter. I picked it up, we got two bags and it is still messy there,” she said.

Sarah said the majority of trash that Henry and his family had picked up included “nips, bottles and cigarette butts.” She also explained that prior to establishing the group, they reached out to Granby resident Jaimelee LeBreton who runs Keep Granby Beautiful. She explained that LeBrenton’s group is part of a national chapter of Keep America Beautiful.

“We didn’t know that at the time, we contacted Jaime to make sure we wouldn’t be stepping on her toes to start a group in South Hadley,” she said. “Henry was really enthusiastic about that, we were able to start our own chapter in South Hadley.”

The group, she said, has already been registered as part of Keep America Beautiful. She said while she drives Henry to different streets to pick up litter, he is the driving force behind the group. “I’m the driver, but Henry is spearheading it. We’re just along for the ride,” she said.

They decide on which street to clean based on appearance, Sarah said. She explained that South Hadley is largely residential and “people keep their yards picked up.” However, she said in less populated areas there tends to be more litter. “If we see a street that needs to be spruced up a little, that’s where we’ll stop,” she said.

Additionally she said they have begun to work with a group of homeschoolers across Western Massachusetts to pick up litter in not only South Hadley, but across the region as well. “We have a very large homeschool group that gets together and cleans up a different town. We did Granby and we’re going to do Holyoke,” she said.

Sarah said she was proud of her son for his enthusiasm for keeping the town clean. “I love his outreach for it, he’s got passion for it,” she said. While the group is still growing, she said she was hoping they could organize more events in the future.

“As we grow a little bit bigger and more people know about us we’re hoping we can organize a whole volunteer cleanup day,” she said.

In the meantime, both Henry and Sarah emphasized that it only takes about 20 minutes to fill up a trash bag full of litter and people should go out on their own. Henry said, “People can go for a walk, bring a bag and gloves to pick it up. Every little bit helps.”

He said he felt it was important to keep the environment clean for wildlife. “It’s important to keep it clean for the animals. If it was polluted and we didn’t take the trash out of the water, it would barely be drinkable,” he said. “It’s also better to not have to look at trash. They can clean up their streets which helps.”