Joyce Street Spring Clean Up party

by Paul Reid

Thanks to the Joyce Street Spring Clean Up party on Earth Day April 22nd, the Joyce Street area never looked better.

Now in its second year, the Joyce Street Clean-up is another great opportunity for neighbours to get together and to give back to their community. The number of participants was down a bit from last year, perhaps due to the slightly damp and grey weather; nonetheless, spirits were high and the rains held off.

Before heading out, the volunteers were signed in and orientated. This included reading through a list of safety tips; becoming familiar with the areas where each crew would focus on and to be outfitted with reusable gloves, garbage bags and litter pickers (tongs).

Families, friends; even our dear local political figures, Adrian Dix (MLA) and Don Davies (MP) set out for the next two hours to see what they could remove.

As well as bags and bags of trash, three syringes (needles) were identified and later removed. One of the safety tips is “not to pick up any hazerdous materials such as glass, barbed wire, syringes/needles, medical waste, pipes, chemicals or debris with sharp or rusted edges.” So in this case, the volunteers alerted members of the CCPO to actually retrieve these three syringes.

Spring Clean-up: Continued from page 1

Angela Evans, head of our Colllingwood Business Improvement Association and co-organizer of the event was there to set up; sign people in; she also MC’d the prize give-away.

Brenda Krivuzoff, Principal of St. Mary’s School, another co-organizer, was present to set-up and organize along with Angela. It was Brenda who initially brainstormed the idea for this clean-up after noticing that the area was in need of some attention.

Partap Sahota, Executive Director of the Collingwood Community Policing Centre, along with many CCPC volunteers, helped with the event as well.

Partap says “Our community clean-ups are like all our other programs. It is a way of bringing community to work together towards a common goal of improv- ing the quality of life in our area.”

So the neighbourhood gets cleaned; the volunteers get a little reward and the biggest reward, surely though, is the knowledge that they had just helped out their fellow neighbours and community in a real way. A win/ win/win.

Thank you again to the organizers (the Collingwood BIA, St. Mary’s School, Collingwood Community Policing Centre, Collingwood Neighbourhood House and Adrian Dix’s Constituency Office); those local businesses and organizations that donated the gifts and all of the volunteers.

The next clean-up that will include a larger area of Collingwood, is on Saturday May 27, 2023. Everyone is welcome to join in and there will be a BBQ afterwards. Interested?

After the clean-up, everyone headed around the back of St. Mary’s School for a lovely BBQ and prize give away.

Email:partap@collingwoodcpc.com or Tel:604-717-2935