Schools
One Hour in Blackness to Save the Earth
Raphael Colard, fifth grader at Greenbrook Elementary in Danville reflects on the "Kid's Hour" event last Friday.
By Raphael Colard, Fifth Grader at in Danville.
As a student in Ms. Eplin’s fifth grade class, I am expected to do my best at all times. But I was never really prepared for the one event that took place recently, “Kid’s Hour!” on Friday, March 25 when we asked people to cut the power for one hour.
I contacted my family in France and my best friends to help support us fifth graders. But today I realized this: Every single person who participated in Kid’s Hour was supporting the world itself, Planet Earth. Not only that, they helped stand up for kids because they believe that there is no difference between a kid and an adult. To me, that makes sense.
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If you take my class of 31 people and multiply it by 200, that’s about how many people joined us in this spectacular event. Our goal was to have 6,000 people turn off their lights and power and we exceeded that goal! We contacted people through phone calls, email, a website we designed, and posters around the school.
The point of Kid’s Hour was to kick off “Earth Hour,” an event to support conserving energy that occurred one day later. Since Earth Hour is at night, many children around the world don’t get to participate. So we took a stand and made ourselves a special quote, “Kids CAN and DO make a difference, one hour at a time!" and Kid's Hour was born.
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In the one hour we had our lights turned off, our class brainstormed more ways we could make an impact in our world and environment and came up with ideas for Earth Day in April. We also thought of simple messages to help spread the word, like "Turn off the water when you brush your teeth" or "Stop buying bottled water and use filtered water and reuse a bottle!"
You might think it took us months to plan for this event but we only prepared for five weeks, never dreaming we’d reach so many people!
All of us have our beliefs and one belief can change everything. And since I have a belief, I will stand up for it: “Kids can and do make a difference one hour at a time!”
