Friday, August 24, 2012
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Neighbors | Alisa Manna.Many people enjoyed the dream catcher project at the Green Team's visit to the Poland library including, from left, David Cinco, Josh Porter, and Kyle Cinco.
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Neighbors | Alisa Manna.Abigial Markley made her dream catcher using different pink yarns and feathers. All dream catchers were made entirely of recyled products, curtesy of the Green Team.
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Neighbors | Alisa Manna.Julie McDanel (right) and grandson, Dominic Lucci (left) show off one of the finished dream catchers that they worked on at the Green Team visit to the Poland library.
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Neighbors | Alisa Manna.One of the projects that the Green Team had children work on was a dream catcher to keep bad dreams away at night. Sharon Cross (back); and sons, from left, (front) Scott, Dominic and Louis show the start dream catcher crafts.
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Neighbors | Alisa Manna.Mahoning County Green Team educator, Peg Flynn, reads "Just a Dream" at the Green Team's visit to Poland library. "Just a Dream" is about a boy who dreams that no one recycles and sees all the destruction and wastefulness that occurs.
By ALISA MANNA
The Green Team of Mahoning County visited the Poland library on Aug. 9 to help conclude its summer reading program, The Green Team was represented by educator Peg Flynn, who read “Just a Dream” by Chris Van Allsburg, a book about a boy who dreams of the future, and then goes into the future but sees a world that doesn’t recycle.
“He sees his street is polluted, the water is polluted and everything is unkept,” Flynn said.
The boy then comes back to the present and changes his ways by recycling and even planting his own tree. As Flynn said, the message in the book is quite clear: Don’t litter, please recycle and take care of Mother Earth.
“You can do something little every day,” Flynn said. “When you’re done with a bottle or can make sure you recycle it, and don’t waste things.”
In the story, the people were cutting down trees for paper and toothpicks, but Flynn explained in reality it’s happening in the Amazon.
“If you recycle the aluminum cans in Poland, Ohio, you’re saving the rainforest of South America,” she said. “They cut them down to take out the bauxite bore under the rainforest that holds the aluminum oil.”
After reading the book, Flynn had the children make a craft using recycled household products. She had them make dream catchers based on the theme in the book.
Children’s Librarian Amanda Kollar said the library always tries to get different people from the community to come and talk about a range of topics.
Joe Pompeo from Poland brought his son, Mark, and his daughter, Stella, to learn about recycling. He said they come to the library every Thursday as a special ritual for the family.
The Green Team has visited every library branch in Mahoning County and goes to other institutions all year long, including preschools, environmental clubs and church groups. Not only do they want to spread the word about recycling and reusing, they want people to realize litter is aesthetically unappealing and dangerous to animals.
“We offer free curbside and drop-offs in every community,” Flynn said. “We also have litter police who fine those who are caught polluting.”
Before leaving, Flynn gave the children a “Clean & Green” coloring book that also has a checklist of things the kids can do to help recycle and reuse. And for the adults, she gave them a sign-up list for free recycling bins.