If you’ve been at Denny Dobbs Park recently, you might have noticed some creative signs telling people to pick up their trash.

Signs like “Don’t hurt the critters. Please pick up your litter” and “There’s no stress in cleaning up your mess” are the work of 11-year-old London Howard, a 5th grade student at the Newton County STEAM academy and a member of the Girl Scouts of troop 22149.

On Saturday, April 20, London and her team held a cleanup day at Denny Dobbs Park to address the litter problems that persist in the community’s parks.

For London, this is the next step in achieving the Bronze award, the highest distinction possible at the Junior level. 

Originally she had aspirations of doing two other projects before deciding to host the cleanup.

“First, I was thinking that we could do something that could help the pets out in Covington. I was thinking about posting signs up directing people to the nearest animal shelter,” London said. “Then I thought about helping the homeless, like helping them find homes, but that takes a lot of work… probably more than a month.”

But after thinking of ways she could impact her local area, London decided on hosting the Denny Dobbs Park cleanup.

“So then the last thing I thought of, which I was sure of was a problem in Covington was trash cause I’ve seen it all over the streets and all over the side of the road,” London said. “When I walked over there to see if we should clean up that park, there was lots of trash. There was even a tire!” 

While the group was unable to get rid of the tire, they were able to dispose of 13 bags worth of trash.

London’s mother, Jasmine Howard, expressed her excitement in seeing her daughter leading the charge in helping her community.

“Well I was excited. We go to Denny Dobbs often. We go there to hang out, especially in the summer we go to the splash pad and then even their bus stop is there, so we’re literally there every day,” Jasmine said. “You can just see the trash, and so she was thinking of different projects to do. She said she wanted to do the trash pickup and I said ‘Well that’s easy. That’s something we can do that helps the community. So I was pretty proud of her for coming up with that idea.

“I’m excited and proud to see her take the leadership.”

Going forward, London hopes to continue to give back to her community.

In August, London will participate in a bridging ceremony where she will go from Junior to Cadette. With this new rank, she will take on a leadership role and continue to coordinate service projects such as the one completed at Denny Dobbs Park. 

When asked what she hoped others could take away from the cleanup, London viewed it as a two-fold answer.

“Well first, I hope that it took a really long time to plan this,” London said. “And second, I hope that they learn the value of hard work cause some people they don’t work at all.”

As far as what the project meant to her, London kept it short and sweet.

“It was really nice to see people helping out their community.”