On two separate days devoted to pulling trash out of the Munday Creek ravine that runs behind Walnut Grove Secondary School (WGSS) in Langley, teachers Tim Stephenson and Gerry Hanlon said a group of student volunteers found plenty of junk.
They pulled out everything from abandoned shopping carts, to barbecues, and three different office chairs as well as metal fence posts, the kind that are usually locked in place on park pathways to keep out vehicles.
"We don’t mind cleaning it up but if everyone treated that space as if it was their own, we wouldn’t have to." The WGSS Leos Club students, led by teachers Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Hanlon, picked up garbage from the creek behind their school. Great work!#MySD35Community pic.twitter.com/MTAhd5etMz
— Langley Schools (@LangleySchools) March 17, 2021
“There was some shelving units [too],” Stephenson told the Langley Advance Times.
One of the shopping cart was buried deep in mud, Hanlon said.
“We dug it out, and it took awhile,” Hanlon related.
“It’s just a lovely wooded area that people are walking through. People would just chuck their stuff in the ravine.”
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It is an exercise in hands-on environmentalism, Stephenson explained.
“We’ve adopted the creek behind the school,” he remarked.
“Its nice to see the students take pride in their surroundings.”
About 20 WGSS students from Grades 9 to 12 have been looking after Munday Creek, removing all types of trash and sorting some of their their haul into bags of recyclables in the school parking lot.
Hanlon said the goal was to establish a grassroots environmental initiative that encourages students to be “good stewards.”
Students are “really excited about playing a role,” Hanlon noted.
“They get in there, they get their hands muddy and they make a difference. “I’m just impressed at how willing they are.”
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The students have been out twice so far this year, and were planning one more outing.
In an online post, the students commented that they “don’t mind cleaning it up but if everyone treated that space as if it was their own, we wouldn’t have to.”
Yorkson Creek and its two major tributaries, West Munday and East Munday Creeks, flow through Walnut Grove and Willoughby, draining 20 square kilometres of land into the Fraser River.
Is there more to the story? Email: dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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