Six Penn Hills students won top honors this year for their artistic renderings of anti-littering messages depicted on posters and coloring pages.
Alexandria Shields, a senior at Penn Hills High School, won first place for her poster playing on the “Penn Hills — Home of Champions — Keep It Clean!” theme.
Shields, along with other poster winners, will receive a gift at an awards ceremony June 1 at the Penn Hills Library.
A total of 425 students in K-12 grades participated in the program headed by Andrea Getsy of the Crescent Hills Civic Association.
Other winners included elementary students Wisdom Fayomi, Oscar Salinas and Ryan Michael Gomez. In middle school, the winners were Genevere Jerez-Lopez and Cassidy Carroll.
“With all of the folks that are picking up litter, the popular refrain has been, ‘how can we get this to stop?’” Getsy said. “The answer is we have to educate the younger generation, to make them understand that it’s wrong.”
The poster program joined forces with the Penn Hills Anti-Litter Program this year to also include an essay contest, in which students wrote responses to the questions: “How does litter negatively affect a community or your community?” and “What can I do to help keep my community clean or to help clean it up?”
The winners and runners-up will receive $50 gift baskets or gift cards. Many of the posters are displayed at the Penn Hills Library and at 75 local businesses.
