Saturday, May 24th was our annual Spring Cleanup in the parking lot of Trinity Fellowship.
Just when we thought we were in for a wet Spring Clean up, the clouds broke up and the sun made its way through for our second annual neighborhood clean up event which raised an estimated $2,500 for South Tabor Neighborhood Association.
We had eight 30-yard drop boxes on the ground at the beginning of the day to handle mixed waste, yard debris, and metal. We also had a station for plastic and Styrofoam. From 9-1 neighbors came by with their junk, yard debris and metal as well as re-usable stuff for the Community Warehouse, electronic waste for Bear eCycling and donations of building materials for the The ReBuilding Center. The Resignment Shop, consisted of many re-usable things that neighbors donated toward. I saw so much yard art, clothing, platters, and even an outdoor oven/grill go to neighbors. One of the volunteers picked up many re-usable baby items! Thanks to all neighbors who donated their quality items. We sent four pick-up loads to the Goodwill at the end of the event. This area made almost $375!
There was a tremendous effort by all volunteers to divert as much from the landfill as possible- our ultimate goal. Due to the training provided by the city’s master recycler program, specifically Cory Kneifel, we were able to form a deconstruction crew that pulled off bulky metal from wood, plastic from chunky pieces of mixed waste or metal and we were able to reduce our mixed waste bins and increase our yard debris and metal recycling. Thank you so much to Christian Harvey Construction for providing tools, skills and direction! This was one of the hardest and busiest jobs- it never seemed to get boring over there!
There are always things that happen, which are unplanned for- good and bad! This event had one such bad snafu! An unfortunate fact is that our plastics hauler had either an emergency, forgot about us, or both! We were stuck at the end with major amounts of plastic and Styrofoam; which was sorted and ready to be delivered and/or hauled away. I was sick to see all of our efforts go to waste- literally. We took as much plastic as we could to Far West Fibers, but the rest had to go into a drop box and hauled over to Metro transfer station, where the fate is unknown. I can only hope that since it was sorted so beautifully that they would be able to take care of the proper distribution to the plastics recycler.
One of the most gratifying parts of this event is seeing all of the team work and community building. We had people showing up and thanking us for doing such a nice community service. We also had neighbors who showed up to lend a hand on the day of just because they had the time after-all!
Please enjoy the many pictures of the event. Feel free to comment or ask questions, cleanup@southtabor.org.
Your faithful Volunteer Clean up girl,
Jana Throckmorton
