LYNN — The 2022 “Keep Lynn Clean” poster contest for second-graders commenced on Monday, highlighting the city’s key strategies in its fight against litter: education and prevention.
City councilors, School Committee members, Mayor Jared Nicholson and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Patrick Tutwiler visited 18 Lynn public elementary schools and two private elementary schools on Monday to kick off a poster contest aimed at engaging second-grade students in learning about the harmful effects of litter.
Nicholson, Councilor-at-Large Brian Field and Ward 5 Councilor Dianna Chakoutis, co-chairs of the Litter Committee, as well as Ward 4 Councilor Richard Colucci visited the Harrington Elementary School on Dexter Street. They met with a few dozen second-grade students at the gym and asked for their help in spreading awareness about litter and a message that trash needs to be picked up.
“Friday’s Earth Day reminds us that we have a responsibility to keep our city clean,” said Nicholson. “And if you walk around the city, you see that we have some work to do.”
He explained to the students that posters will help to remind people that trash has to go into the garbage bins.
“Can’t go on the ground. Can’t go on the sidewalk and take over our park. Can’t go into the ocean, can’t go in the pond,” said Nicholson. “We need your help to remember to put the trash away and not put it on the ground.”
Many students raised their hands, showing that they were interested to participate in the contest.
Over the next two weeks, students will draw posters about littering and keeping the city clean and submit their artwork to their teachers, explained Field. All teachers in each school will have another week to vote and select a winner from each school.
The 20 winning posters will be collected on May 16 and reprinted with 100 copies for each one. The posters will then be displayed at the city’s businesses.
Each school’s winner will be recognized by the City Council with a certificate. The Lynn Litter Committee will also select one poster out of the 20 to be displayed on a billboard this summer.
Participation in the contest is not required academically and is voluntary.
The contest was first held in 2019, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, said Field. He said this made it hard to print posters at the beginning of the pandemic and distribute them among the businesses while some businesses were closing. This is the first year the contest is back on again.
“We decided as co-chairs of the Litter Committee, along with members of the committee, that education was a key component of the litter issues that we have in the city,” said Field. “If second-graders know how to do it, everybody should know how to do it.”
“Second-graders have a tendency of going home to tell the parents,” added Chakoutis. “This is something new; this is exciting for them. So they are going to spread the word, ‘we have a contest,’ ‘you can’t litter,’ ‘you have to throw it in the barrel.'”
Other litter-related initiatives going on around the city include Saturday park cleanups under the motto “Keep Lynn Clean” and youth-litter patrols made up of 16-year-olds who will be volunteering for six to eight weeks in the summer after the Fourth of July to clean up the Lynn Commons, parks, playgrounds, ponds and Lynn Woods.
The city has made investments into equipment like street sweepers, Field said, and the Litter Committee is constantly in contact with the mayor to talk about how to budget more to help keep the city clean.
“It is a top priority for the city to address,” said Nicholson. “We certainly share the concern a lot of residents do that the streets need to be cleaned, the parks need to be cleaner.
Nicholson said he is excited to work with Field and Chakoutis and the rest of the members of the Litter Committee on proactive solutions, as prevention is a key strategy.
“And that’s what today is about,” said Nicholson.
The city is also trying to think strategically, identify best practices and find ways to make targeted investments with the help of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to tackle the trash problem, Nicholson said.
