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Keep Springfield Beautiful Gearing Up for Cleanup Day

by Bill Dusty

On Thursday, January 8, 2009, members of Keep Springfield Beautiful (KSB) met at the offices of the Maple High/Six Corners Neighborhood Council to plan for this year’s city-wide Cleanup Day, scheduled for May 2, 2009. The event is on a Saturday, and will run from 8:00am to 1:00pm.

On the agenda for the meeting, which was presided over by KSB President Melvin Edwards, were plans to perform an “index” of locations throughout the city that are in most need of cleanup. That is slated for late March. Michael Cass, who heads up the City’s graffiti remediation efforts, volunteered to perform the index, along with a couple other volunteers. KSB is an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, and the index is mandated by that national organization.

In addition to the index, members also discussed plans to create flyers (in English and Spanish), and to update and re-design the KSB website. The meeting also elected a new secretary, Jenni Manfredi, following the recent resignation of the group’s former secretary.

For the past two years, KSB has performed annual, city-wide cleanups of Springfield’s neighborhoods. There are four zones where volunteers meet up to form teams: Rebecca Johnson School, in the McKnight neighborhood; Duggan Middle School, in Sixteen Acres; Forest Park Middle School, in Forest Park; and Chestnut Middle School, in the city’s North End. Once organized and equipped with plastic bags, gloves, and cleaning tools, teams then fan out to work on those areas of the city in most need of attention, according to the index. Teams can be made up of individual volunteers or pre-organized teams that register beforehand to function as a group. KSB is asking local schools, organizations and area businesses interested in forming teams to contact them for more information.

The City plans to provide $12,000 for Dumpsters, which will be located at each of the four zones. Plastic bags for volunteers will be provided by Keep America Beautiful. Last year, the city’s Health Department supplied gloves for volunteers and organizers are hoping for the same this year. KSB is also looking for donations of food and drinks by local businesses, hopefully including doughnuts, coffee, juice and perhaps sandwiches available for up to 1,000 volunteers. In a related effort, KSB has also teamed up with MassMutual, with plans for that company to provide matching funds for the purchase trash receptacles to be placed in “high traffic, high litter” areas of the city. The specifics for that plan are still up in the air, however, and a deadline of February 15, 2009, for submitting a project report to MassMutual needs to be reached.

In addition to the supplies mentioned above, KSB also plans on providing Tee-shirts to the first 1,500 volunteers. There are plans, too, for a raffle with prizes for those who signup to participate in the cleanup.

Last year’s cleanup event had a much lower turnout than the 2007 effort. In 2007, nearly 3,000 volunteers picked up approximately 340,000 pounds of trash from the city’s 17 neighborhoods. In 2008, an estimated 1,200 volunteers collected approximately 248,000 pounds of trash. Organizers agreed that last year’s event was not as well organized as the 2007 event, and they are hoping to correct that situation with this year’s cleanup.

Anyone interested in forming a team to participate in this year’s Cleanup Day, slated for Saturday, May 2, can contact KSB President Melvin Edwards via email at melvinspeaks@msn.com, or by phone at (413) 733-2664, or (413) 348-8036. KSB plans to meet on the first Thursday of each month, at 6:00pm, leading up to the Cleanup Day. The meetings will be held at the Maple High/Six Corners Neighborhood Council office located at 74 Walnut Street, pending further notice. February’s meeting is scheduled for the 12th of that month. Interested parties are encouraged to attend.

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Posted by Bill Dusty on Jan 15th, 2009 and filed under Cities & Towns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.