Kindergarten students team up with Townto make anti-littering signs

Ward 2 Councillor Dave Sheen and Southfields Village Public School educators collaborate on sign project

By ZACHARY ROMAN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A class of Caledon kindergarten students are making their community cleaner one day at a time. 

On June 21, students in Melissa Tamming and Jodie Anderson's kindergarten class at Southfields Village Public School installed some special anti-littering signs at their school.

In collaboration with Ward 2 Councillor Dave Sheen and the Town of Caledon, the students were able to have “Do Not Litter” and “Pick Up Your Dog Poo” signs they designed themselves printed on real Town of Caledon metal signs. 

Tamming, Anderson and Sheen invited members of the media to Southfields Village Public School on June 21 to share the story behind the signs and watch them get installed. 

Tamming and Anderson take their kindergarten students on a walk around the school grounds each day, and started to notice there was all kinds of garbage and dog poop being left on the property. 

Despite efforts to pick up waste when they found it, there continued to be litter on the school grounds. The class decided to make their own anti-littering signs, but ran into a problem: the paper signs they created, laminated, and put up soon became damaged by the weather and fell off the fences they were posted on. The signs ended up contributing to the litter problem they were trying to help fix.

This is when Ward 2 Councillor Dave Sheen came in. He had seen Tamming and Anderson's class putting in lots of work to keep the community clean, and knew he could reach out to Town of Caledon staff to get proper metal signs that wouldn't break made.

Tamming said it's so important to teach kids to respect the land we live on. 

“Whenever we walk now, the kids always find garbage to pick up,” she said. 

Sheen said he is so impressed with Tamming, Anderson, and their kindergarten students. He said the way the class cares about the environment and community is truly special.

“I was so excited to help facilitate the production of these signs,” said Sheen.