Poster children for the environment

The city asked children around Glendale to reflect on what they could do to prevent pollution through this year’s “I Love My Neighborhood” poster contest, and the students responded by creating artistic scenes of people picking up litter, recycling cans and painting over graffiti.

More than 10,000 of those students from public and private schools around Glendale participated in this year’s poster contest, and 54 finalists were recognized during an awards ceremony at the Glendale Civic Auditorium on Wednesday night.

Among them was 9-year-old Teni Amadian, who won the contest’s grand prize..

She created a poster that the judges thought really spoke to this year’s contest theme: “I am the Pollution Solution,” said organizers of the contest.

Teni drew herself standing in front of downtown Glendale, holding a giant sign that announced the sentiment that she was, in fact, the solution to pollution.

The city was bright and clean, with skyscrapers on both sides and mountains in the background. Around the city, signs were posted that reminded residents to recycle and not to litter. The girl in the poster was assisted in her clean-up efforts by a donkey named Litter-not, the mascot of the Committee for a Clean & Beautiful Glendale, which organizes the annual poster contest.

“If there’s a lot of pollution in the air . . .  nothing’s going to work out in the future,” Teni said about the importance of cleaning up the environment.

The contest theme was chosen to foster a sense of civic pride among students, and to encourage them to take responsibility for helping to keep their neighborhood clean, said Noreen Benjaminsen, a program coordinator with the city’s neighborhood services department.

The contest was meant to show children “that they have the power to be the pollution solution,” Benjaminsen said.

All 54 finalists received trophies during an event that was sponsored by city departments, local businesses and proud parents.

The top three winners will have trees planted in their names at their schools, and a large reproduction of Teni’s poster would be displayed at City Hall, Benjaminsen said.

Teni’s father, Sooren Amadian, said his daughter — who attends Armenian Sisters’ Academy in Montrose — created art whenever she had free time.

“She loves drawing and painting and stuff like that,” he said.

Helene Verheyen, 7, came in second place for her poster depicting a girl who was cleaning up the polluted sky of Glendale.

And Emily Kang, a student at La Crescenta Elementary School, came in third place for a bright picture that displayed two halves of the same city — one polluted, one not.

At the end of the ceremony, Neighborhood Services Administrator Sam Engel asked the audience to join him in the “Pollution Solution Pledge.”

Parents and students stood and recited, “I pledge that I will not litter or do anything else that causes pollution.”