If you want something done right, ask a kid.        That’s what the Maryland Department of the Environment did. Since 2001, high school students have celebrated America Recycles Day by competing in the annual Rethink Recycling Sculpture Contest. The contest tests students’ sculpture skills. Their medium? Recyclables only.

       Giving is my favorite part of the holidays. I love the process — the decision, the secret, the wrapping, the unwrapping and the smiles ... or tears. Last year I even sent my boyfriend on a scavenger hunt to search for his Christmas present. Gifting is a sport to me, but thoughtful giving is tough on a bartender’s salary of tips.

      Watching football while digesting Thanksgiving Day feasts is one ritual. Another is tuning in to the National Dog Show. Many who prefer terriers and hounds to fellows in helmets and pads cheered when Ducky, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, captured the crown in the Sporting Dog Group — even though he was nosed out for Best in Show by a sleek Italian greyhound named Whiskey.

      At Christmas time, when so many trees are cut, the right gift for people who have most everything — or whom you wish to honor or commemorate — might be a tree. A tree is a gift that lasts, offering beauty, shade and habitat-enhancing air and water quality and reducing energy costs every day of its potentially long lifetime. All the better if your gift tree demands not a bit of care.       Maryland Department of Natural Resources promises to make the Gift of Trees effortless.

      What’s a bored second-grader to do early in the morning before heading off to school? Write a story that becomes a podcast and then a track on an album, of course.        At least that’s how the story goes behind the song What the World Was Called Before Us, the creation of Windsor Farm Elementary student Liam Heist.

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” –Robin Williams  

      It takes good soil for plants to grow healthy and vibrant. It takes brave souls to push for better legislation to make that happen.      Last year, environmentalists and organic farmers scored a win when the Maryland Legislature passed the Healthy Soils Program and Gov. Larry Hogan signed the bill. The program works to sequester the global-warming bad guy, carbon, in Maryland soil while increasing its biological activity.

     As the temperature drops, Chesapeake Country’s needy citizens depend on our help to stay warm.        Aha! you might think: Time to get ride of all my old clothes. Not if you want to do some good. Before you take your worn jeans and old T-shirts to donation boxes, the charity-driven folks at Hope For All suggest you think about the needs of people in need.

What We’re Thinking in Chesapeake Country Anne Arundel shifts from economy to crime and drugs       Crime and drugs are the most important problem facing Anne Arundel County, according to an October survey of 655 countians by the Center for the Study of Local Issues at Anne Arundel Community College. Nearly a third, 31 percent, call those threats their biggest issues. 

      If there’s any day to bridge the gaping American divide, it’s Thanksgiving. On that great American feast, consensus rules. Eighty-eight percent of us report that turkey will be our Thanksgiving dish of choice, according to the National Turkey Federation. Certainly for me, one of the great pleasures of the day is the near unanimity of sharing in one great meal, all across the nation.