“They are endangered and I don’t want to make them become extinct,” said Hutton.
That train of thought led the Grade 3 student at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Guelph, Ont., to start the Polar Bear Walk last year. The idea behind the Polar Bear Walk, which grew out of Hutton’s frustration with the number of cars that drive to his school daily, is simple enough — he wants students to walk to school in order to cut down on emissions that have been linked to the melting of the polar ice caps and thus threaten the existent of the polar bears.
“If you walk to school you won’t produce any gases but when you are in a car and you are driving to school and you live really close it causes a greenhouse effect,” said Hutton. “Even though the Arctic is far away the smoke is still going to get there and then it will cause a massive effect to the polar bears. The ice will begin to break and then they can’t hunt for food such as seals and fish.”
Three other schools in the Wellington Catholic school board — St. Joseph’s Catholic Elementary School, St. James Catholic High School and St. Michael Catholic School — will be joining Hutton’s second walk.
And that’s something that has the young environmentalist pleased.
“It makes me feel good because in a few days everyone will join me,” he said while speaking to The Register just days before the walk scheduled for Jan. 15.
Not only has Hutton’s walk attracted the attention of other schools, it’s also garnered sponsorship from Planet Bean, a local coffee shop that will provide hot beverages for the event at two of the schools, as well as recognition from World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF).
This past fall Hutton was invited to and formally recognized during WWF’s annual general meeting. In addition to that WWF agreed to send its local resident polar bear expert, Peter Ewins, or Polar Bear Pete, to Holy Trinity to give a presentation on the Arctic predator following the 15-minute walk from Hutton’s house to Holy Trinity.
“I heard that Polar Bear Pete is going to come in and he is going to bring in some polar bear fur and maybe even a polar bear skull for us to see and touch,” said Hutton. “They (Hutton’s peers) may not know as much about polar bears as me so I want them to know about them a little bit more by bringing in this stuff from a real live polar bear.”
Hutton added he hopes his peers will fall in love with the polar bear just as he has from learning more about the creature and its northern habitat.
In addition to promoting awareness and cutting the carbon footprint for a day, the Polar Bear Walk is also a fundraiser. The event raised about $500 to be donated to WWF last year, and Coca-Cola has committed to provide matching dollars this year.
What adds to the impressiveness of the initiative, which his father Jason assured was taken on entirely by Sean, is the fact that the younger Hutton is autistic.
“I don’t know if proud is a strong enough word but we’re proud and excited for him and excited to see the kind of stuff that is coming to him, the recognition coming out of it,” said Jason, who also praised Holy Trinity. “We are very grateful for the support from Sean’s school especially, but now the support that the other schools are showing just for his efforts. We are very appreciative of the support he gets because they are supporting his goals and that is very important to us.”
Todd Goodwin, principal of Holy Trinity, is equally impressed by the youngster’s initiative.
“We’re really proud of him,” said Goodwin. “It is really wonderful that he has taken this on and that he has gotten so many people around him on board with his goal, with his mission. We are hoping that this year’s walk is going to be a big success and that we can get more and more schools involved across the city and then even greater than the city.”
And while much of the attention is being focused on Hutton, he is keeping his eyes on the real stars of the show, the polar bears.
“They are one of my favourite animals,” he said. “I’m doing this walk for you (the polar bears) and I want to say to you I don’t want you guys to become extinct.”