By Mary Reid Barrow

Maddie Lin was the face of the Lin family at LRNow’s Spring Fling a couple of weeks ago.

The twelve-year-old Old Donation School student was in charge of the children’s activity booth. She made newspaper pots in a mold and then helped kids fill the pots with dirt and plant a couple of sunflower seeds.

Youngsters, like Avery Trainor, daughter of LRNow’s Pearl Business and Volunteer Manager Kathryn Trainor, were thrilled with their take-home seed pots which they could plant directly in their yards.

The Lin family—dad George, mom Jane and son Paxton, along with Maddie–is our Pearl Home Spotlight this month.  Jane often brings both Maddie and Paxton to help at events or to help Pearl Home Coordinator Terri Gorman with office chores.

On the other hand, Maddie also has been volunteering on her own for most of the year. She especially likes working at events.

“It’s really fun to interact with people,” Maddie said, “and I like the nature-y stuff!”

“I learn more facts every time,” she added. “And Terri shares what she has been doing.”

Being at LRNow events comes naturally to Maddie and Paxton  who participated every summer in our preschool programs when they were youngsters,  among other activities.

The family lives in the Great Neck area and they support the environment at home by raising a vegetable garden and fruit trees as well as with solar panels on their roof. Above all, they are very careful about waste.

Jane gave an example of how, instead of throwing away an old clothes drying rack, she reuses it for hanging the kids’ paintings to dry or hanging fruits from their fruit trees to create dried fruit.

Jane’s concern about waste, also comes naturally to her, she said. She grew up in Taiwan.

“It’s a tiny, tiny island,” Jane added, “And they have run out of space to put trash.”

When she was a youngster growing up, Taiwan had already banned plastic bags. Now, she said, there are no plastic bottles on the island either and the trash laws are enforced by stiff fines.

Other than being very careful with both using plastic and disposing of plastic, the whole family participates in composting their food waste which they have been doing for eight years now.

They already have emptied out last year’s compost, shared it with the neighbors and started a new batch this spring!

The Pearl Home Spotlight shines bright on Maddie and all the Lin family, environmental advocates both at home and at LRNow.