ALL HAIL THE HALF-TERM HEROES
IT’S not how every child would choose to spend their precious half-term. But these ‘little pickers’ have put their peers – and parents – to shame by using their time off school to clean up the country.
Eight-year-old Daniel Walker was spurred to act by a single discarded Tesco bag – and has now raised thousands of pounds for a local hospice through his clean-up operation ‘Litter Busters’.
‘I just wanted to save the animals from harm by stopping rubbish from going into the ocean. From that first bag, I now pick up litter every day after school and sometimes on weekends,’ Daniel said. With the help of his mother Natalie, and the council providing the necessary equipment, Daniel is helping to transform his local area of Great Notley, Essex – earning him a Keep Britain Tidy award this month.
Braintree councillor Wendy Schmitt described the schoolboy as a ‘true role model’ and said she ‘could not think of a more worthy winner’ than Daniel.
His efforts are matched by those of nineyear-old Sadie Hall. She suffers from a rare genetic disorder that affects just 16 other people worldwide – and when piles of rubbish in her local park threatened her exercise routine, which is essential for keeping her muscles strong, she decided to take action.
Along with mother Caroline, Sadie began picking up litter as she went on her daily walk around Springwell and Monkton Dene parks in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear.
Before long, her dedication was turning heads in town – so Mrs Hall, 42, decided to set up the Primrose Parks Alliance in April last year, which attracts 60 volunteers to its litter-picks each month. Since then, the group has cleared up six tons of rubbish. Mrs Hall said: ‘Everyone’s on board and everyone knows Sadie because she’s the driving force behind the whole thing.’