March 26th Community Clean-up Day
By Albert B. Kelly
As we begin to set our sights on spring and milder weather after a cold winter, it is that time of year when we also start planning for Bridgeton’s semi-annual clean-up day. For 2022, the first Clean-up day will take place on Saturday, March 26th from 9:30am to 3:30pm. Coming out of winter, there will be a lot of trash and litter on our streets and sidewalks, but I believe we are up to the challenge.
Coming out of past clean-up events, it was not uncommon for volunteers to collect upwards of 200 bags of trash and several dozen bags of recyclable materials. As in years past, I am hopeful that we will have the enthusiastic participation of our students as they always provide a big lift to our efforts. Dealing with this issue of trash and litter might seem like an unimportant thing in light of everything else happening in our world, but it is one of those issues where we can have an immediate impact and that’s no small thing.
Trash and litter, left unaddressed, always has a blighting effect in our neighborhoods depressing property values and tacitly giving some type of unspoken permission to people to be apathetic toward their surroundings. I suppose trash and litter is a symptom of poverty, though I never fully accepted the idea that the one should automatically lead to the other. Throwing your trash into receptacles doesn’t require much more than a willingness to do so, but that’s a discussion for another day.
On March 26th, clocks will have already sprung ahead and we are inviting all volunteers to meet up at the Marino Center beginning at 8:30am to sign-up, gather supplies, receive your assigned areas or neighborhoods for clean-up, and get organized for the day’s work. From there, teams of people will spread out in various corners of the community with bags, gloves, and pick-up sticks to give our community a little TLC.
Beyond that, we are eagerly awaiting poster submissions from Bridgeton students to help give this year’s clean-up efforts a certain theme and look. As we have done for past clean-up events, we will be selecting the winning submissions and placing those posters around the City to help remind people that we all have a part to play in keeping our community clean.
In addition to individual volunteers, we also want to encourage church families and youth groups to take part, specifically by focusing on the neighborhoods immediately surrounding your church. Too many times, congregations come to the church building on a Sunday or a Saturday as the case may be, to gather and worship, but these congregations maybe have less connection then perhaps they want with their neighborhoods.
For congregations, the neighborhoods surrounding the church is part of the “mission field” and I am confident that each congregation is sensitive to those around them. One of the ways to demonstrate their care for their mission field might be to use the community-wide clean-up as an opportunity to move through their respective neighborhoods not only picking up trash and litter, but knocking on doors and greeting their neighbors.
Going forward, we are hoping to utilize resources from the Urban Enterprise Zone Program to fund a “clean-Team” initiative that would focus on our downtown and gateways into the community, but we also invite our business community and merchant base to participate either by being part of our volunteer workforce that day or providing resources to help fund our efforts.
Children are always welcome, but need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Because we’re still in a time of quarantines and pandemics, face masks will be required and social distancing will be in order when possible and practical.
My hope is that we will have an even larger group than we had last year at this time. As I said then, the end result matters and that result is cleaner streets, but there is more to it. It has to do with community spirit. I say that because community spirit is elusive and often hard to define. You know it when you see it, and these days it looks like committed groups of residents picking up trash and litter city-wide on a Saturday on the edge of spring and if we can do that- we’ll be doing something.