Making a Difference, Caring for Our Community
When Waste-Free Dayton was established earlier this year as an official nonprofit organization, three focus areas were identified as critical to our mission: Reducing Plastics, Increasing Composting and Decreasing Food Waste, and Community Rejuvenation. It is that third area under which we include our monthly litter cleanup events. Organizing and mobilizing volunteers to get out into our communities is something tangible where we can see an immediate impact. It does not address the root cause of the litter - our education and awareness campaigns will hopefully help in this area - but it certainly helps with working towards healthier and safer communities. Recently, we had our largest cleanup event of the year.
On Friday, October 22 and Saturday, October 23, Waste-Free Dayton volunteers picked up litter on Hamilton Avenue in East Dayton for Make a Difference Day, one of the largest days of community service in the country. This was by far our largest cleanup event to date, both in terms of the amount of trash picked up and the number of volunteers. Over the two days, 28 volunteers covered the entire length of Hamilton, collecting an approximately 50 bags of trash, numerous tires, a suitcase, a computer and hundreds of cigarette butts.
We are sincerely grateful to everybody who participated and supported this event, and to the organizations who were critical to the success of the event:
Montgomery County Solid Waste District / Keep Montgomery County Beautiful
Our next cleanup event is on Friday, November 19 from 2 pm to 4 pm in the Dayton View Historic District. Volunteer registration can be found here. You can find future events when they are posted on the calendar on the Get Involved page.