I Love Where I Work

I so made the correct decision when I applied at Dirigo High School. I love who the students are so much. And I love where my school is located. It is so pretty and so rural here. I am not judged for how "hick" I am here, and when I go out and work in the community, I feel a satisfaction of helping out people whom I am both entertained and pleased by.

Since starting the Service Learning on the AT with frosh last year, I have asked to head up a community service project every year when it comes to the day that all sophomores provide service for their community (another reason why I love my school). Thankfully, I have a principal (once again) who supports and likes what I want to do with students. To connect with what some of the now-sophomores did on the AT when they were freshman, I contacted two local ATV and snowmobile clubs and asked if we could help. One activity they thought most helpful would be to pick up trash. So much of the land we snowmobile, ATV, ski, fish and walk on is private land, only allowed to us by the goodness of the landowner. It made sense to me to pick up trash on their land. (It, in no way, makes sense to me how MUCH people throw out their car window. There was certainly a lot of chew containers, Budweiser cans and Bud Light twelve pack cardboard that we found. The boys were pleased as punch to find a porn mag on the side of the road and then to find, 100 feet down the road, a condom wrapper. Along with the typical litter, we also found: underwear, TWO fire extinguishers, a DVD player, a helmet and a full bicycle wheel. CRAZY!)

After I presented my plan to the sophomore class, I had 18 kids interested: 14 boys and 4 girls. That is a LOT of boys. We worked as a large group in Dixfield, on the snowmobile trail behind the campground, and in Carthage, we split into three groups to cover three different areas. I can't tell you how many times they made me laugh. They were so good-natured and fun, getting down on the riverbank and chucking litter up to the road where another kid would throw it in the bag.

My favorite quote of the day came from one of the boys I have never had in class and had never really gotten to know until yesterday. He was walking down the road in a Region 9 sweatshirt, Levi jeans and shit-kickers, about 20 feet ahead of me. He turned around and said, "I really feel like I am doing a good thing, because I litter." HA! I was like, "Yeah, maybe you won't do that anymore... Maybe?" It was an awesome day.

The Webb River

Jack Steele's Field

Teamwork - that is a lot of trash!

The Webb River

Picking up trash on 142 in Carthage. No, they are not convicts.

Carthage.

Not everyone; we have some shy shy shy boys.

LOVE this pic. This is all but one of the group (and I think at least two are completely hiding themselves behind others). That is Dixfield Sugarloaf in the background and that is the trash we were able to get in ONE hour of picking. Crazy.