It is 2024 now. On weekends, you’ll find Mateo Lange separating bottles and cans into different types. Mateo, 15, leads a community recycling program in Indian River, Michigan, his hometown.
Mateo launched the program in 2020. He was 11 and in sixth grade. He was playing baseball with the Northern Michigan Cyclones. The team needed money to travel to tournaments (锦标赛). Mateo came up with a plan. “There were cans and bottles always thrown around the road,” he tells TIME for Kids. In Michigan, these can be collected. Then they can be exchanged for money. Mateo started a bottle and can drive. His dad helped. They raised $7,500. “We built up so much money,” Mateo says. “So I said, ‘Why don’t we keep this going?’”
Since then, Mateo’s recycling effort has raised $350,000. And it has helped at least 50 youth groups. It has collected more than 2 million bottles and cans. It has kept them from littering Michigan’s roadsides. It has kept them out of lakes and rivers.
In 2023, Mateo was awarded a Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. It honors kids and teens who help others and protect Planet Earth. “It feels great,” Mateo says, when asked about all he’s achieved. “I am happy knowing that all these teams and clubs and kids around the community are benefitting (受益).”
He believes everyone can—and should—be of service. “Just do a little bit to help make the world a little bit of a better place,” he says. “Be creative,” he adds. “Have an idea and build on it.”
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