How I Am Changing the World
By: Max Kesselman
Max's Mission is an annual event (on my birthday) where I invite the community to help me clean the streets as my birthday present to the earth. I am changing the world, 1 clean up event at a time.
When I was 6, I was traveling through Philadelphia and I wanted to know why there was so much trash on the side of the roads. My parents explained that sometimes people don't clean up after themselves or litter from their cars, causing the trash to be on the streets. I created Max's Mission because I thought that if enough children my age help to clean the earth, that we could make the roads and our neighborhoods free of trash. Some of my inspiration for my project comes from my parents. My dad makes it a point to pick up a piece of trash, every day. When I saw him doing this all the time, I thought that I could get my friends to help clean up where we live.
Max's mission started in 2005 with the event I did with few of my friends. Now I do the event every year near my birthday (December). Last year, we had over 90 kids and adults from the area help me clean up and we collected over 50 bags of trash. The township closed the roads and the police helped us. I accomplish my goals by getting more kids involved. My first event we had 8 kids, last year we had 90 people to help us.
Since the 1st event, we have had over 400 people help us clean up from the community and have cleaned over 2 tons of trash (this was our 5th year). The event takes a lot of time to organize and my parents and I work with the police and trash department to close the roads and clean up the area with the other kids.
I have learned a lot from the event. Mostly that if I teach other to clean up, they can help me clean the earth and that the more kids we get involved, the idea of keeping the earth clean will be important to everyone. I have also learned that there are still a lot of people who litter, and hopefully they will see my event and stop throwing trash on the roads. Max's mission has helped me to understand the importance of teaching others.
I am trying to change the world by making Max's Mission something that every community can do with the children where they live. In 2010, I organized the event in Ventnor, NJ so that other communities could get involved - this will enable Max's Mission to grow, like Alex's Lemonade Stand. This way, more kids can do Max's Mission in their neighborhoods.
Also, my parents and I created a neat website for kids to see what we are doing (also has a game to play too) so we can teach as many kids about the event using the internet. Check out my website - www.maxsmission.org
