Approximately 1,700 volunteers lined city parks, trails and streets on Saturday, April 8 to participate in the 21st annual “Cleanup Columbia.” The trash pick-up event covered 150 sites including Stadium Boulevard, Brown Station Road and US 63.
Sandy McCinn and Jerry Porter were two of about ten volunteers serving for Rock Bridge Lions Club. Porter said the club participates in four trash cleanups a year and on Saturday, he said he noticed Nifong Boulevard was much cleaner than in years’ past. McCinn filled two trash bags herself from the site.
“Actually it’s a lot cleaner this year. Normally it’s a lot dirtier. We pick up a lot more trash than this but somebody must have come through recently and cleaned it,” Porter said.
Neighborhood Services Manager Leigh Kottwitz said most of the trash pick-up sites do not change year to year because these areas are consistently in need of cleaning. The program tried to place volunteers in areas of their choosing or close to their residences for convenience and their knowledge of the area.
“The other area we end up with a lot of coverage from our volunteers is in our parks and on our trails because we have many groups that have children, either families or scout groups,” Kottwitz said.
The event filled up about 2,000 bags of garbage in total and logged over 3,000 hours of service.