Comment by miiiiiike

There was a crummy, barely used, mostly abused, walking path with a sitting area near my old apartment complex. [0]

One day I decided to pick up all of the trash/cigarette butts, installed a butt bin, and planted a bed of flowers in the center. Big sunflowers.

The next day I went out and someone had destroyed the cigarette bin. When the flowers sprouted someone immediately doused them with something and set all but one on fire.

I replaced the butt bin same day and replanted the flowers the day after they were burned.

Nobody cared, they even resisted at first, but, eventually people stopped trashing the place and what was an empty sitting area started filling up with people.

It’s worth trying. Sometimes people will care.

[0]: Turns out (and I learned this way after the fact) that the path marked the site of a WWII POW work camp. I didn’t know this but German prisoners were shipped to the US to make up for the farm labor shortage during by WWII.

Anyway, the path was a loop with a sitting area at the entrance. Imagine the most out of the way, inconvenient place you could put a plaque. That’s where they put it. The plaque informing you that your apartment complex was built on the former site of a Nazi work camp was at the very back of the loop with the text facing away from the path.