Though I was so very little, six in fact, and so very young, this memory lives vividly in my mind.

When I was six, I went on a walk with my family upon a trail that lead to a rather filthy lake. As my family continued to walk, I stopped and stared at an older lady who wore bright yellow rubber gloves. She paused for a second to wipe the sweat off her forehead than went back to collecting the garbage that floated on the surface of the lake and around it.

Courious, I couldn’t help but ask her, “What are you doing, Ma’am?”

She looked up at me and smiled, “Everyday our lakes get filthier and more polluted as more and more people throw their trash away on the ground.” She pointed at a _Coke Cola _can that bobbled on top of the water. “I’m throwing away the trash that they aren’t to help keep this lake and all the critters who live in it safe and healthy.”

She turned back around and went on with her business while I turned around to catch back up with my family and tell them what I had discovered.

The day that I met that lady, I don’t think I had truly understood at first what she was trying to tell me, but every time I see litter lying on the ground, harming our environment, I pick it up, throw it away, and think about what she had told me.