Volunteers help clean McGregor on Earth Day

By Ron Giofu

A community cleanup last weekend took place in McGregor and was part of a competition between Essex County municipalities.

The community cleanup saw volunteers go through McGregor with the Town of Essex also hosting similar cleanups in the other locations of the town including downtown Essex, Harrow and Colchester. They competed against neighbouring Kingsville to see which municipality could collect the most waste.

Essex Councillor Kim Verbeek said council members were in all of Essex centres with constituents helping to clean up. She was in McGregor as it is part of her ward and a team of volunteers canvassed the area and collected waste.

“The volunteers were going out with each ward representative and picked up trash in the community,” said Verbeek.

Verbeek said in addition to making sure the community is beautified, it assists in keeping trash out of area watercourses.

“That’s our water,” said Verbeek. “We have to protect our Great Lakes.” Civic responsibility was another factor.

“Do we want to live in a junky community?” she said. “It’s not hard to pick up trash in your neighbourhood.”

In addition to the McGregor Community Centre, volunteers met at Heritage Gardens Park Pavilion in Essex, the Harrow and Colchester South Community Centre and the Colchester Park Playground.

The amount of garbage was weighed and compared with Kingsville to see who collected the most.