MORGANTOWN — The days are getting warmer, trees and flowers are blooming all over town, and area residents are gearing up for some group-effort spring cleaning.
Morgantown Community Clean Up Day — created to help beautify the city’s parks, trails and green spaces — is set for April 27.
“I think it’s going to be a great event and a lot of fun and do some good,” Chair of the Morgantown Health & Wellness Commission Colleen Harshbarger said.
Harshbarger said she needs volunteer captains — responsible for organizing and recruiting volunteers, making sure volunteers sign a waiver, receiving clean up and safety instruction, picking up trash bags and gloves provided by the city, supervising volunteers the day of the event and making sure all the trash collected ends up in the right spot for pickup by 12:30 p.m.
The only requirement to be a captain is a willingness to do those things, she said.
A dozen sites have been identified for cleaning including White Park, Marilla Park, Woodburn, the Arboretum and several areas on the Deckers Creek Trail. Each volunteer captain will be responsible for one area.
Harshbarger said she’s hoping the event inspires a sense of pride in residents’ local green spaces, parks and neighborhoods and the event is a good opportunity to contribute to keeping those places great. It’s also a chance for neighborhood coalitions to come out as an organization and connect with their neighbors.
April 27 is also the first Athletics Day of Service, with 10 WVU teams and about 200 student-athletes participating, according to Tangela Cheatham, director of student-athlete enhancement. The Morgantown Community Clean Up Day is one of 10 events the athletes can participate in.
“We chose this event as part of our overall Day of Service because it is very important for Mountaineer student-athletes to understand, experience, and appreciate giving back to a community that wears the flying WV with pride,” Cheatham said. “We want to engage with our neighbors, friends and fans and the opportunities selected for the WVU Athletics Day of Service provide that opportunity.”
Captains will need to pick equipment up on April 26 or before 9 a.m. on April 27. All cleaning needs to be finished at noon and the athletes are committed to helping from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Twitter @WillDean_DP
