Service Above Self: Each one teach one

By Kitt Brand on May 6, 2025.

“Each one, reach one; each one, teach one” was a rallying call of Dr. Stan Hamilton starting in the 1960s to promote reading literacy. It was used in South Africa to educate prisoners during Apartheid and then throughout the world to empower marginalized people. Yet there is another crucial literacy to which “Each one, teach one” can marvellously be applied: Environmental Literacy.

After the winter snows melt and as Medicine Hatters take to the streets for Spring Cleanup, it’s hard not to think that if we each reached one person with a Stash your Trash message, the community would forever be clean and attractive to residents and guests.

While litter is a blight to the eye, it is also a burden to the city’s municipal budget and to taxpayers’ wallets. You know litter, it’s the stuff people drop on the trails, at the lookouts and all about town.

Imagine if each one in our city of 63,000, every year picked up one piece of litter and taught at least one other person this act of Environmental Literacy, there would be 126,000 fewer coffee cups, sandwich wraps, napkins, plastic bottles and unmentionables thrown out vehicle windows and doors. What a radical concept! There are communities across the globe who protect their own part of the world by self-disciplined anti-litter behaviour.

And, while cigarettes may seem romantic in old films, discarded cigarette butts don’t have quite the same appeal. Not only do they spoil a blissful moment while resting on a bench overlooking one of the City’s vistas, they also raise the danger of a rapidly-spreading and destructive grass fire. Crescent Heights has seen a number of such events in recent years.

The black scar on the land and smoke memory linger well after the MH Fire Department has doused the flames. There is a cost beyond destroying the landscape. So, how often do these fires occur?

Medicine Hat deputy chief Doug Gill reports 60 outdoor fires in 2024. The money spent managing preventable fires could better be allocated instead to another exciting recreation attraction for the city.

Rotary International’s monthly action inspiration for April was Environment. We don’t all have to be as dedicated as Greta Thunberg, but we can pick up trash and encourage those within our sphere to do the same. A little reminder helps.

For example, the Rotary International focus worldwide for March was Water and Sanitation. In our household that nudge translated into our remembering to turn off the water while we were brushing teeth. At restaurants, we poured only the amount of water we knew we could drink.

At home, excess water got saved for our ever-forgiving succulents. Our water awareness extended to using the washing machine and dishwasher only for full loads. Little changes can go a long way. From one household to another to another.

As we go through spring with this wee reminder to make wise decisions about the way we treat our world, may we be Environmentally Literate and “Each one, reach one; each one, teach one.”