It is not often youth are expected to take a leading role in cleaning up a mess that they did not make themselves
But last week, four local kids broke some of those old, tired stereotypes still tied to young people by having a problem, but rather than just complaining about it or ignoring it, the boys took action to solve it.
After riding over and around garbage and broken glass at the Bonnyville skatepark for the first couple weeks of summer vacation, four boys (Joshua Theriault, Noah Klassen, Dorian Aubichon and Kailer Chung) were fed up and decided to clean up a mess they say had become a drag on their time at the park.
The boys took it upon themselves to request cleaning equipment from the Centennial Centre staff, who kindly obliged. They then spent their afternoon sweeping, pulling and picking up the trash that had been consuming the usable area of the park, turning a challenging but somewhat engineered skatepark into an unpredictable and dangerous pad of pavement.
The boys' main reward for their efforts: a clean park to ride in for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
Seeing the boys take initiative should make adults proud, but it should also make them question why a skatepark provided for the community is turning into a trash bin? Are there ways to keep trash and broken glass from being spread around the park, without overreacting and setting up 24-hour security or shutting it down completely?
And if there is trash strewn about, who is responsible for cleaning the place up, and why has that job been neglected to the point of volunteer kids doing the work? Or maybe they are the ones responsible for cleaning that place up?
The skatepark might not be as flashy and nice to look at, even on its cleanest days, when compared to other amenities in town, like the brand new splash park. But the skatepark is still an attraction that is well used and enjoyed by kids and youth from both in town and outside the community.
We can all take a couple lessons from these four young boys – both to take care of what's important to us, and also when faced with an issue to not just call it in for someone else to take care of, but to actually take initiative, find a solution, get a team together if we have to, and solve the problem at hand.
