Green Jersey

Girl Scouts promote anti-idling message in Cherry Hill

Scouts urged the school board to pass a No Idling resolution.

by Ruth Anne Robbins

Last night, a troop of Girl Scouts in Cherry Hill presented a No Idling resolution to the Cherry Hill Board of Education. The girls wrote the presentation based on work that they have been doing over the past year trying to get the word out about the environmental and health hazards associated with idling cars.

They shared the stage with each other, explaining the myths and dangers of idling cars and buses and holding up signs. Two of the same troop members appeared last summer in front of the Cherry Hill Town Council and succeeded in getting a resolution passed to make Cherry Hill a “No Idling: Clean Air Community.” The troop’s goal last night was to convince the Cherry Hill school board to pass a similar resolution for the schools, and to get the town name onto the New Jersey DEP’s Stop the Soot website.

Here’s an excerpt from their speech:

Idling is bad for three main reasons.
1. Idling destroys the ozone layer with too much carbon dioxide and pollutants.
2. People breathe in all that bad air from idling cars and it is bad for our health. It is especially bad for people with asthma. Kids who are breathing it in while they are growing can have really bad health problems. Kids are closer to the level of the exhaust pipes and are breathing it right in. And, kids breathe two times faster than adults so they are breathing in all that pollution even more than adults.
3. Third, idling wastes gasoline, a nonrenewable resource.

At the end of reading “just 2/3 of the resolution… because we know that you have a lot on your agenda tonight,” the troop handed up a copy that was printed on oversized cardstock.

With many smiles, the school board moved the item up on their agenda (these were 5th graders who needed to get home early) and voted unanimously to approve. School Board member Bob Russo commended the Scouts on their efforts, saying, “you are helping not only the children here in Cherry Hill today, but also those who have not yet been born.”

The Girl Scout troop has worked with Sustainable Cherry Hill, a grassroots organization dedicated to outreach and education. The two groups are devoted to developing an anti-idling public awareness campaign to educate the community about the dangers of idling, the benefits of turning off their cars and the false folklore surrounding the need to “warm up” their engines.

The troop will be presenting about No Idling at the “First-Ever Earth Day Festival” sponsored by Sustainable Cherry Hill and Cherry Hill Schools on April 18 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Carusi Middle School. There will be live music, food, educational displays by kids, workshops by professionals, kids’ activities, vendors and more. For more information, contact Jodi Raditz at jraditz [at] chclc.org.

Guest contributor Ruth Anne Robbins is a professor at Rutgers-Camden and the proud mom of one of the Girl Scouts.