Our First Partnership!

Getting any service group known to its community takes some time and conscious effort. Thanks to an active and passionate board, our CUGB branch got its first partnership this past Saturday. The Urban Village Church reached out to us, wanting to get more involved with the community they’re based in. After some communication with our president, we organized a cleanup in Maywood Grove.

On Saturday morning the members of the board arrived early to set up. We were tasked with cleaning up both the field and adjoining woods of Maywood Grove as well as a nearby vacant lot. We put out materials and healthy snacks (donated to us by Trader Joe’s and Fresh Thyme) and waited for our partners to arrive. To our delight, the majority of the volunteers were parents with young children. The kids, ranging from ten years old to as young as two, were all refreshingly enthusiastic about picking up trash and keeping the environment clean. The adult members were also very involved, even providing donuts and coffee to fuel our volunteers.

We had the parents direct their children towards the field and woods beside the river, to avoid the heavy traffic near the vacant lot. Meanwhile, the teenage and adult volunteers aimed to clean the lot and the small strip of woods behind private residences. As always, the sites at first glance are extremely polluted, but that simply encourages us all to work hard. I focused on the smaller strip of woods, especially closer to the entrance to the Grove. We all got into our familiar rhythm, using the grabbers to collect larger pieces of trash like empty chip bags, plastic grocery bags, bottles and discarded packaging and using our hands to clear up small bits of plastic, bottle caps and the like. There is nothing quite like clearing up the last bit of trash in an area and looking around to see how much cleaner the small space around you is.

My fellow volunteers impressed me this weekend. When I walked to the vacant lot early that morning to set up signs, it was a mess. You couldn’t take two steps without finding more garbage, there was as much trash as there was grass. When I returned an hour into the cleanup, I was amazed to see how meticulously cleaned the whole site was. We wouldn’t have to worry about any of that trash being blown into the adjoining woods and river, the volunteers didn’t miss a spot. As we gathered at the end to tally our total weight, I felt that this could be our largest cleanup yet.

Tying the bags and weighing them became a fun little adventure with our young volunteers. Many of them wanted to hold the bags themselves to see how heavy they were. One young man wanted full participation, and challenged himself to throw the bags well over his head into the dumpster. We had the families make their best guess at what the total weight would be. There were many interesting finds to consider, including road signs and even a car bumper. The adults and older children carefully picked weights ranging from 80-130 pounds but in the end, the winner who took home the forest preserve calendar (our prize) was a little boy who made a very ambitious guess of 157 pounds. With a little estimation on the larger objects, we found that we collected a whopping 196.4 pounds of trash from Maywood Grove.

Our first partnered experience was both successful and exciting. Every volunteer was fully committed to making their community a healthier place. Even with the frequent donut breaks, we collected nearly 200 pounds of trash and made wonderful connections to our neighbors and their community. We look forward to future partnerships with our community and its people and hope that our readers consider reaching out and organizing a cleanup of their own.

---

Want to host your own cleanup campaign?

It doesn't matter if you're looking for a group service project or an individual contribution, we can help! Email us at cugb.oprf@gmail.com !