Castlegar kid 'comes clean' with community project
By Kyra Hoggan
Community wellness can be child’s play – just ask 12-year-old Kyle Kallin, who secured funding for, then organized, an event to clean up Millennium Park.
The Grade 6 student said he often enjoys time at the city’s signature park.
“I like to go biking down there lots,” he said. It’s nice on the walkways, but when you go down into the trees, there’s lots of plastic and scrap metal and tires and garbage.”
And while wouldn’t normally think of dishsoap as the ideal means to clean a park, it turned out that dishsoap company Sunlight had just the solution.
“My momm was online and saw the application (for Sunlight Green Clean Kid community grants),” said Kallin. “I thought it would be a cool event and it would help clean up the park.”
Kallin applied for, and received, a $500 grant, which he says will be spent on posters, refreshments for volunteers, prizes, etc.
The event will be held May 30 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Kallin says you only need bring a willingness to pitch in – gloves, garbage bags and the like will be provided.
The City of Castlegar is pitching in, too, providing compostible garbage bags, a dumpster and hauling services for all the refuse gathered.
“I think it’s absolutely superlative,” said Castlegar mayor Lawrence Chernoff. “I hope there are lots of adults in the community who follow Kyle’s lead … it would go a long way.”
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