James River Gets A Cleanup. Thanks Volunteers

So we have a tradition in our family that we get to pick what we want to do for one whole day to celebrate our birthdays and so every year for the last 4 years I have picked the James River Clean-up as my “Neher Birthday Fun Day Celebration”.  Now this may seem odd to some of you but I value the environment and my family above all other things and so spending a day outdoors with my husband and children with the beautiful James River as the backdrop makes for a good day, plus we are doing something worthwhile that makes a difference in our community.

I have taught my children the value of our natural environment and how important it is that we do everything we can to protect and preserve it.  We reduce, reuse, and recycle everyday but this clean-up is more about the very simple idea of “Don’t Litter!”  My 5 year old was very displeased with the amount of garbage along the riverbank and could not understand why anyone would simply throw their trash wherever they want when there are so many trash cans near the park.   I didn’t know what to say to him other than “some people are lazy and don’t feel as though they should clean-up after themselves”, his response was ” that’s stupid, if they threw away their own trash we wouldn’t have to do this and the river would already be clean!”…from the mouths of babes…the truth uncensored!