Four Years of Cleanups
We held our first official litter cleanup of the year on the first day of March, after a couple of failed attempts at cleanups in January and February that were affected by weather. Since we took the month of December off, this was the longest stretch of time in which we didn’t have a cleanup since we started doing them four years ago! Needless to say, we were itching to get out and start picking up trash, and apparently so were our volunteers, as we had a total of 19 people come to help that day.
We went back to one of our normal reoccurring spots, Hamilton Avenue in the Historic Inner East of Dayton. This area was where our first cleanups were held back in March 2021, and we continue to come back here several times per year. We remain optimistic that the city will be able to buy the abandoned railroad from Norfolk Southern and turn it into an elevated recreational trail (“The Flight Line” - see WDTN article from 2023), and once that area benefits from the investment, then it will be less likley to attract litter. Until then, we’ll continue to go back as often as we need to.
Counting one unofficial, impromptu cleanup that I did with another WFD volunteer on the last day of February, we are still a little behind on our goal to average at least one cleanup per month. It’s not end of the world if we don’t do at least 12 cleanups this year. Overall we are aiming for consistency, and that means stating our goal of one cleanup per month. We are squeezing in another cleanup in March, which will be Saturday, March 29 at 10 am. It will be in a new area for us, in the area where Centerville meets Sugarcreek Township in the South Suburbs of Dayton. You will find the link to register on the event page.