Nine-year-old Maia, a Girl Scout Junior in Duvall, Wash., says it’s her job to look for ways to make her town a better place. That’s what she was doing while walking down the side of a busy stretch of highway without a sidewalk. “It’s terrifying,” she says.
Maia and her family walk that route four nights a week to get to Taekwondo classes. Maia says she sees other young pedestrians and cyclists using the route, too.
Maia took her concern for pedestrian safety to Public Works and scheduled a meeting to learn more about what goes into building a sidewalk, how much it might cost, and how to fund it. It costs a lot. But that didn’t deter Maia. “I’m just going to keep trying,” she says.
With he mother’s help, Maia started an online fundraising campaign. She has raised over $500 so far. She carries campaign flyers reading “Maia’s Sidewalk Project” with her wherever she goes and posts them on bulletin boards around town.
Maia encourages anyone who wants to help to help spread the word with flyers an website buttons available on her website, mysidewalkproject.com.
In the next couple of months Duvall Performing Arts will help support Maia’s sidewalk project by hosting a dance-a-thon.