Pittsburgh Public – Ninth Grade Nation…Be the Change
By Troy Miller

On Saturday, May 30, 2009, I attended the Westinghouse High School community block clean-up with many of my fellow classmates, their friends and Ms. Beale.  While this project was intended to clean up around our school, it serviced another purpose, a way of getting extra credit points for those whose grades needed a little boost.  When I arrived at the school around 10:00 in the morning, more than 10 students had already arrived and were cutting the grass, mowing lawns, planting flowers and picking up trash around the school. 

Once I figured out which activity I wanted to be a part of, which was to pick of trash, I got two of my close friends from school to work with me.  This whole time I was excited and enthusiastic about picking up this trash not only because I love my neighborhood and want to see it clean but, because earlier during the week all of the kids that Ms. Beale invited to be a part of the clean up were informed that whoever collected the most bags of trash would receive a Kennywood ticket.

When we all separated and began cleaning up, me and my two friends said to each other that our goal was to pick up 15 bags of trash (of course we did not reach that many but…).  We walked up to Hermitage Street and got around 3-4 bags from that street and realized the four blocks that was our perimeter just was not enough blocks to impact our neighborhood and meet our goals.  So we approached our teacher and asked her “Ms. Beale would it be possible if we could possibly go an extra block down so we can extend our reach to more streets where the blocks were in need of our cleaning up, just be careful”.  After she thought about it she walked over to the kids that were planning flowers and mowing grass, reached in the wheel barrel and pulled out a pair of gardening gloves and said to us, “Ok, you can go down to Frankstown Avenue and clean up that block.”  When we were finished we ended up having 9-10 bags of trash, which was of course, the most bags collected by any other team.  When we got back to the school with our full bags of trash in our hands we sniffed around because we started to smell a delicious odor that was protruding from the side door of the school.  As we looked to see where the odors were coming from, we saw Mr. Weems, our vice-principal grilling, which of course completely caught us off guard only, because Ms. Beale never informed us that we would be eating out.

We walked in the side door just out of curiosity and we saw a couple of our fellow classmates and their friends sitting down at the lunch tables that were in the hallway eating what appeared to be something delicious.  We had to indulge in this activity also, which included grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, and the makings for ice cream Sundays, and last but certainly not least, some thirst quenching “huggies”. 
When we were finished eating Ms. Beale, announced that our team (thank God) was the team who would receive Kennywood tickets, which of course made us very happy.  She thanked us for coming out, and said that we would get our extra points.  For those students that did not go to Westinghouse , she stated that their teachers would be contacted via email, so of course everyone left happy, with a full stomach and some extra pride that they could come out on a Saturday not only to help Ms. Beale, but also to clean up the neighborhood.

In conclusion, if I were asked was the event a success and should it be held annually, but on a wider scale involving all schools, my answer would definitely be “yes”.  The event was a huge success and of course this should continue as an annual event.

Note from Ms. Terry Beale, "Be the Change" Teacher at Westinghouse:   In addition to the neighborhood clean-up, the students at Westinghouse, as well as members of the community,  had the opportunity to talk to representatives from social agencies and educational institutions during our Saturday Community Outreach Day.   We have also used PennCORD stipends to conduct an anti-violence poster contest and reinforced the message with a speaker program.