Six-year-old Landry Sayer, an elementary school student at Stanley Switlik who loves animals and plays T-ball, has inspired a citywide movement to clean up Marathon.
Landry went to the May 11 Marathon City Council meeting to show her concern about the amount of trash near her home. She presented a video that she and her family made, pointing out the abundance of litter in her neighborhood. In the last scene of the video, Landry and her sister, Sutton, age 9, started picking up the trash, looked straight into the camera and said, “We need your help!”
Mayor Luis Gonzalez and the other council members in attendance responded with a standing ovation after the video.
“We’ll organize a city-wide cleanup that’s going to be sponsored by you and the city staff,” the mayor declared, adding that he will also reach out to Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay. “Thank you for all you do to make our city a cleaner place.”
Landry’s mother, Allison Sayer, told Keys Weekly, “This little girl amazes me every day,” and explained how her daughter’s project got started: on a dog walk.
Landry and her sister, Sutton, walk their dog twice a day around their Gulf neighborhood. After each walk, Landry would come back and complain to her mother about all the litter they had seen: a tire, plastic bags and cups — some of which she would see thrown out from car windows.
And she would tell her mother, “We have to do something about this.”
“Every day,” recalled Allison with an exasperated laugh. “She would say, ‘We need to start cleaning this up.’ I would tell her I would research those pinchers to pick up the trash, and the next day, she would say, ‘Mom, did you order them?’ Every day. Finally, I said, ‘Do you want me to call the mayor?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’”
Luckily, Allison had an in: Landry played T-ball on the same team as Mayor Luis Gonzalez’s daughter. Allison took a chance and texted Gonzalez about Landry’s concern about the litter.
“He literally calls me the next day,” she said. To Allison’s surprise, Landry was invited to attend a city council meeting and speak about her issue. So the entire family — Landry plus sister Sutton, mom Allison, and father Sean — decided to come together and make a video to help the six-year old get her message across to the city council.
Keys Weekly asked Landry how she felt about presenting her video at city hall. “Excited,” she responded, breathlessly.
So, why did the trash bother her so much?
“Because the animals eat it, and we don’t want them to die,” she said, explaining that she is looking forward to the cleanup, which will start sometime after her family returns from their annual summer trip to Minnesota.
At the council meeting, Gonzalez acknowledged the unusual nature of Landry’s presentation, and he said he welcomes it. “It’s very rare when you get approached, and it’s a 6-year-old child that wants to address us at a council meeting because she wants to make a difference.”
