Eighth Grade Second Place in Creative Writing

A rich lady getting to her office crosses a street,

Frowning at the smell from a pile of trash;

But she adds to it and thinks she is above picking it up,

Because she has no shortage of cash;

She wrinkles her nose,

And she walks away;

And because she littered, too,

She will never admit that the rotten smell ruined her day;

On this street lived a man,

And he slept next to the garbage;

For he could not afford a home,

With no job to earn him a wage;

He hated that smell,

It made him ill;

But he had nowhere to go,

So he remained there, still;

Neither the woman nor the man knew,

What this day had in store;

That it would be a better day,

Than the day before;

But while she was at her job,

And while he looked for work;

A group of students on a cleanliness drive,

On that street did walk;

They cleaned the junk,

And placed a dustbin;

They put up a sign,

Saying, “This bin you must put your trash in”;

In the evening, as the woman crossed the street,

To get to her car,

And the man returned,

From another failed attempt to find a career,

The two saw that the garbage was gone,

And a dustbin on the ground that trash was thrown upon;

The next day was one happier,

The woman told her boss that she would quit;

She met with the man from the street,

And starting an NGO together they did;

And their motto

Was “A clean today makes a happy tomorrow!”