PAC II Committee Hosts Community Clean Up

By Adelsa Williams

BIG CYPRESS — In the early morning hours of March 26, Big Cypress community residents met for a community clean up project. The event was coordinated by the Big Cypress Parent Advisory Committee II (PAC).

The clean up route started at the baseball field on Josie Billie Highway and ran through the reservation along Horse Shoe Road and Eloise Drive and ended back at the starting point.

Committee members, parents, and children of all ages geared up with rubber gloves and walked through the designated areas picking up any visible trash along the roads, sidewalks and residential yards.

The adults dragged huge trash bags for everyone to fill with debris. Tribal citizen Chris Joe assisted others by tossing all full trash bags into the back of his truck and taken to the waste facility down the road on Josie Billie Highway.

Besides participating in the actual trash collection on foot, Tribal citizen Candy Cypress drove around a van–courtesy of the Recreation department–filled with coolers full of refreshments to help participants cool off or assist anyone who needed a break. PAC President Vera Herrera even carried around hair ties for those who broke a sweat on the steamy morning.

The children were excited about the project and screamed from time to time, “I got one, I got one,” as they found something to fill the trash bags with. At the end of the trail, surprisingly, there were no complaints from the children about the strenuous project, just cheers, “We made it,” they hollered.

Tribal citizen and PAC Treasurer Jacob Osceola Jr. was one of the parents among the group who helped lead the way during the clean up and did an admirable job motivating the children. He also served as the day’s cook during a lunch time barbeque party held at the Big Cypress community pool at the end of the clean up.

The PAC II Committee was organized to support the Seminole youth that attend public and private schools off the reservation. Services include after school extended care and tutoring. In efforts to get the students involved in their community, the committee conducts a series of activities that demand effort and teamwork, such as the community clean up project.

“Our goal is to teach the children to appreciate what they have,” said Herrera. “It’s for the sake of taking pride in their community because this is where they live, it also brings the community together.”

For the children, it was a day of hard work that brought endless self-rewards and they were expressive about how they felt and what they had learned. Tribal citizen Symphony Osceola, a student at Sagemont School in Weston, Fla. was only one of the students who said trash clean ups are “good to help our community.”

“I learned respect for our land, we should keep it clean,” said Osceola’s classmate at Sagemont School, Christopher Joe.

Other enthusiastic students that participated in the community clean up were Lauren Bowers and Naomi Billie. The two are scheduled to attend Admiral Farragut Academy next school year, a military school in St. Petersburg, Fla.

At the end of the day, the PAC II committee took time to sum up all monies raised through various fund raising activities in the past and posed for a group photo to show off their accomplishment. The program conducted several bake sales, a 50/50 raffle and a Halloween carnival last year. All proceeds will be donated to the Native American College Fund.

“We wanted to get the children involved in activities where we can teach them to appreciate what they have,” said Herrera. “And to help other Natives who are not as fortunate as them, that’s why we chose that cause.”

The committee plans to meet in the month of April to discuss an end of the year trip for the students as a reward for their hard work and good grades.