Earth Day

The New Children’s Crusade

It’s Thursday, April 22, and Marty Kraft is back in business. He’ll once again orchestrate masses of Kansas City volunteers into building a 200-foot recycled sculpture. In 1990, he transformed tons of cans, bottles and newsprint into a giant Earth; last year, into the mythical Grandmother Turtle. Diana Mendelsohn is back in business, too. She’ll lead a parade of 2,000 costumed kids from Indiana schools dressed as the “All Species Parade.” Paul Perkins can’t wait, either. He publishes Imagine, an insert in Sunday newspapers that will again become the largest-circulating environmental magazine, with three million copies distributed worldwide. Named after the John Lennon song, it’s the “official publication of Earth Day.”