Everyday Ghandis
Santa Barbara’s Everyday Ghandis
By Lori Robinson, Saving Wild
For most kids, summertime means fun, barbecues, and hanging around with friends.
But 16-year-old twin brothers Noah and Ramon Wang are doing something radically different during their summer vacation.
“After being home for so long during COVID,” the boys wanted to have a project. They came up with a plan that would incorporate their love of being outdoors and desire to stay physically fit, and also wanting to do something to contribute to the community. They remembered how great they felt when their grade school Carpinteria Family School teacher did a field trip to clean up the beach.
Beginning with the streets around their Summerland home, the twins began filling plastic bags with litter. Soon they moved on from streets and neighborhoods into Summerland’s parks, trails, and beaches. When they finished in their home community, they moved their efforts to Carpinteria and Montecito. On a weekend vacation to Morro Bay they continued their new daily ritual by cleaning around a hotel.
Nineteen days into their efforts, they have spent 92.5 hours walking 91.1 miles, to collect 336 pounds of trash. Glass beer bottles are the most common thing they find and “the grossest thing are glass beakers used for drug inhalation. There are a lot of those. Mostly on the sides of neighborhood streets.” Their project will continue until the end of August when they return to school as seniors.
I met these boys one day on a hiking trail. Quiet, kind, and focused, they left me with a happy heart that people like them, that I like to call Everyday Ghandis, are quietly working to save our wild, and not so wild, places.
Saving Wild, through the Key Biscayne Community Foundation is supporting them in their efforts.
They have received a give certificate for a sporting goods store to get much needed new shoes, gloves, and UV protective shirts. “Their shoes are completely worn out from all the miles,” their mother told me. “Yesterday alone they walked and cleaned for 10 hours to finish a 4-day Miramar beach cleanup effort.”
Saving Wild has opened a monetary Environmental Award fund (at the Key Biscayne Community Foundation) for these straight A students, who plan to major in computer science and biology at college.
The easiest way to donate is to use this link for a tax deductible donation to Saving Wild’s fiscal sponsor, the Key Biscayne Community Foundation.