One of the pillars of scouting is service to the community and doing a good turn to someone every day.
We try and do many a good turn project within our Scout Groups in East London throughout the year. But once a year, for Mandela Day, 1st Cambridge, 2nd Gonubie and 1st Vincent Scout Groups, from the littlest Meerkat to the oldest Scouter join forces and do a litter clean-up.
This year we chose to clean up Nahoon Reef, a much-loved area of East London. We joined forces with Land of the Living, who helped us immensely by taking all the collected litter to their recycling plant. Land of the Living is a registered NPO operating in East London. I think many an East Londoner are familiar with Land of the Living and the wonderful work they are doing in and around our town.
Nahoon Reef area is one of their projects they have been working on as well and they have done a fantastic job in clearing vegetation and cleaning up. To find out more about Land of the Living go to https://www.landoftheliving.org.za. We were honoured to be able to partner with them for our Mandela Day project.
We spent just two hours collecting litter and eventually we lost count of the number of bags we filled. The cubs came across a large blanket that was buried under the sand. This quickly became a project for the cubs and they used their cub power to dig it out. It was tough going but they did their best and of course they eventually got it out. It was so heavy it had to be cut into pieces so they could drag it up to the collection point.
All said and done, it was a morning well spent. We would like to thank all our Meerkats, Cubs and Scouts who attended as well as all the parents and siblings that came to lend a hand. Just goes to show that a little bit of effort and 2 hours of one’s time is all it can cost in making a difference in your community.
“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.” Lord Baden Powell.
I would like to think that this is exactly what we accomplished on Saturday, we left Nahoon Reef a little better than we found it.