Hi Everyone!! As most of you know I started up the “Little Leaders” series last year to shed some light on the little shining stars in our communities and so far it’s been amazing to see the positive response come in from everyone in support of these uplifting blogs and the number of emails that we’ve received sharing stories of Little Leaders in YOUR communities!! Our goal for 2018 (along with many others!) is to keep sharing these incredible stories coming because I am SO proud of all the kids out there who are doing SO much good and I believe they deserve to be recognized!! I want them to know THAT WE ARE SEEING WHAT THEY ARE DOING and we LOVE THEM! Kudos to the moms, dads and support system these kids have in order to live with such compassion and empathy! The point of this monthly feature is to spotlight these special little leaders and help them with their efforts and hope to encourage other kids, youth, and families to follow suit!
So without further adieu, our “LITTLE LEADER” for the month of November is … Clemence Currie.
Clemence’s mother, Kristina, recently shared a wonderful story with us and it sits very near and dear to my heart as it speaks to something I’m very passionate about. I will let Kristina take it away from here and share Clemence’s story with you!
My name is Kristina Currie and my family and I live in Edinburgh, Scotland (I’m an American who has been living here for 11 years). I run an ethical/sustainable kids shop and my husband is an architect. We have a four-year-old daughter named Clemence.
Recently we decided to stop buying plastic water bottles, stop using plastic straws and not take any plastic bags when out shopping. We have always recycled but we had let these items slip by, but after having an ‘awakening’ regarding straws I got serious.
I told my daughter the same day and she asked me to please tell her more. We ended up missing our bus stop we were so engrossed in the history and stats regarding global plastic use.
She took this on fully, and within two days had asked to tell “children in every country” about the straws. She also decided we should write to every company that either makes or uses plastic straws (this idea came about after a meal at Wagamama the day after we had banned these items and they put a straw in her water – she asked me to tell the waiter why we would not be using it and just couldn’t stop talking about the fact that so many places used them). She decided that 100 companies would be her goal, and to reach children all over the world.
We have since decided we want to petition the Scottish Government asking them to ban plastic straws. Clemence will be writing to them as soon as we have time to do a little further research.
She would absolutely love to reach more people. Kids see things SO clearly. She is constantly looking for plastic now and even ended up cleaning up the local beach the other night during our brief stop. There is no reason to continue using products that are killing animals and our oceans; she doesn’t factor her convenience or wants into it.
In fact, we are launching CC’s Plastic Pick Up Crew this week! It’s going to be only done via Instagram and entirely led by Clemence. She’s highly motivated to get kids out picking up plastic! Particularly on the beach, but her love for Mother Earth is great and she sees loose trash anywhere as harmful to her. She LOVES knowing others are helping! Ultimately we will connect our ‘crew’ to charities and look for sponsors to get involved.
Clemence has always been a child who wanted to know more; always asking us to ‘tell her a little more about that’. She wants to know how and why and most importantly who is affected. She has a lot of empathy and we think that’s probably why she’s so motivated to encourage others: she feels it’s the only way to create enough change for Mother Earth and her animals.
The biggest impact she’s had lately is on our business. I own a retail business (Bon Tot, based here in Edinburgh) that has always been transparent and ethical, but we always focused on clothing. When CC started asking for things like a reusable water bottle and when she rejected straws we became new consumers. And when that happened I realized I wanted to make it easy for families to make better choices for the environment. After all, the burden is already unfairly on the consumer so we decided to ease that. CC now helps me buy in eco-lifestyle products! She is my guiding light, after all, she is my target customer!
CC’s goal now is to get kids to make little changes and to look after the Earth a bit more by joining her ‘crew’. She is always seeking new information about single-use plastic and is coming up ideas to help reduce it all the time.
Thank you, Kristina, for sharing Clemence’s passion for reducing plastic in our environment!! I have no doubt your daughter is going to do amazing things and we should certainly follow in her footsteps!!!!
xo
Jilly
