MANCHESTER, NH — For most kids celebrating a 7th birthday, it means partying with friends, family and maybe a giant mouse or jumping around in a bouncy house.
But Titus Spooner isn’t most kids. For his birthday this year, he wanted family and friends to leave the planet a little cleaner by helping him pick up trash March 31 at Derryfield Park.
Mom Amanda Persijn-Spooner said Titus came up with the idea a few weeks after watching a video on Surf Roots TV that showed an artistic rendition of a dying planet Earth.
“It showed pictures of animals dying and the planet on fire,” she said. The video left an impression on the Smyth Road School first-grader who told his mom that he wanted to pick up trash at Derryfield Park.
It was the ideal spot since Titus loves playing on the jungle gym there and two of his siblings attend nearby Hillside Middle School.
Persian-Spooner told Titus that they would first have to form a committee and get people together to do it.
“No,” Titus said. “That will take too long. Let’s do it for my birthday.”
So, on March 31, about 20 friends and family members met at the park and for about two hours, they picked up trash, filling eight garbage bags. Children were told not to touch any needles or objects that look like balloons.
Meeting a reporter at the park a few days after the rubbish pickup, Titus, friends and siblings make a mad dash for the playground equipment.
After burning off some energy, a rambunctious Titus comes back to the gazebo for a quick chat with a reporter.
The most unusual item he saw that day was a centipede atop a piece of trash, he said.
“There were bottles. I think one was whiskey. There was a Pepsi bottle,” he said.
The children, as well as adults at the party, had a good time. One mother told Titus’ parents the children were having fun because it was so unusual.
Once the garbage was collected, it was time for cake and presents at the gazebo. It was catered by Titus’ parents who own Big Kahunas Cafe & Grill in Merrimack.
“He is such an inspiration to us, we are so proud of him,” said Persian-Spooner who with her husband John-Paul Spooner are parents of eight children ranging in age from 16 to 8 months.
They believe in living a healthy lifestyle and being socially aware. Her father grew up in a rain forest in Java, Indonesia, she said. Years later, when he returned for a visit, the rain forest had been replaced with concrete.
“It’s gone now,” she said.
Mr. Spooner said they talk about these things with their children. “If you want to see change, you have to be the change,” he said.
It is something his young son clearly has embraced.
