On Valentine’s Day, The League of Minnesota Cities recognized eight students from across the state who participated in its 11th annual “Mayor For A Day” essay competition.
Charlotte (Charlie) Hausnner, a Grand Marais fifth grader, received an honorable mention. Her essay focused on a residence based pickup program for recycling.
Charlotte attends Great Expectations School in Grand Marais. She is the daughter of Emily and Tim (Timmy Haus) Hausnner.
Emily said the family was on an extended vacation in the South Pacific in January and saw that Charlie was recognized when they checked their email. “When she found out she had won Honorable Mention for her award, she was thrilled and surprised,” Emily said.
Charlie said, “I think I won because people didn’t realize that recycling was such a hassle in this place where people come to enjoy nature, and they (The League) wanted to call attention to it.”
“We are really proud of Charlie for entering the essay contest and being passionate about caring for her environment,” Emily said.
The League of Minnesota Cities is a membership association dedicated to promoting excellence in local government. A Board of Directors of locally elected and appointed city officials governs it. It serves more than 800 member cities through advocacy, education, training, policy development, risk management, and other services.
Each year, the League invites students in grades 4-6 to submit an essay about how to improve city services where they live.
In its press release announcing the results, the League wrote, “The League hosts this annual essay competition to raise awareness of city services that are part of our daily lives and to inspire the next generation of city leaders.”
Charlotte Haussner’s Mayor for a Day Essay
Have you ever wished that you could recycle more? If I were mayor for a day, I would try to improve one thing about our city: I would improve recycling. We don’t have an easy way for people to recycle so many people just throw it away. I want to improve it because a lot of people put their recycling in their garbage cans, which is not only bad for humans, but also very bad for the environment. I think that when we recycle, we are preventing harm to nature.
In our area, people have to drive many miles into town to do their recycling, and some people don’t have the ability to get to the recycling center. I would improve the recycling by setting up a program to pick up the recycling from house to house, maybe not to pick up every week, but once or twice a month just to start. Once we have more people participating, they could pick it up once a week. Everyone who wants their recycling to be picked up has to pay a small fee. I think many people would want this service and would be willing to pay for it.
In conclusion, I think that a pick-up recycling program improvement would help the people of Grand Marais and the whole area participate more in recycling, which is good for the environment and really important to me.
