Wrangell’s annual community cleanup is planned for April 29, with free lunch, free trash bags, free disposable gloves, and cash prizes for volunteer picker-uppers.
And while organizers hope the incentives will get people to turn out, the real prize is a cleaner community.
“Trash is expensive,” said one of the organizers, Kim Wickman, of WCA. It’s expensive to buy the goods, which are shipped into Wrangell, it’s costly to send the trash out to a landfill in Washington state, and it’s unsightly when the garbage litters the town.
She hopes people will pitch in, pick up, and do their part to fill trash dumpsters.
The event will start at 8:30 a.m. April 29 at Evergreen Elementary School. Bags and gloves will be handed out, then volunteers can head out and clean up along streets, roads and parks anywhere in town. The organizers ask that everyone return their trash bags to the collection site at the school, where dumpsters will be lined up for fill-up and borough crews will be ready to haul them away.
Last year, the community cleanup filled 11 dumpsters, Wickman said Friday.
The annual event has been around since the 1980s, said Paula Rak, a longtime organizer.
The free lunches will come out at noon, as will the prize drawing. Every trash bag turned in will earn a ticket, which will be mixed all together and every ticket drawn will earn $5 for the winner.
Volunteers who have their own trash bags can skip the 8:30 a.m. start, Wickman said. “If they would like to head out on their own,” she said, organizers only ask that everyone bring their trash to the central collection point at the school before 1 p.m.
The community cleanup will particularly focus on streets and roads, including logging roads and anywhere else that messy people dump garbage or toss it out their vehicle window rather than hauling it to the borough trash station. Old tires are a frequent roadside attraction for cleanup crews.
Some of the roadside garbage is unintentional, Rak said. “People don’t secure their trash” and animals can get into the cans. Driving uncovered loads to the borough transfer station can result in wind-blown garbage littering the streets and ditches.
Participants in the cleanup are asked not to fill up bags with garbage from their own yard or garage, Wickman said.
Last year’s cleanup was held under “horrible” weather conditions, with constant wind and rain. Despite the Southeast weather, organizers reported 170 volunteers helped out. Wickman said she hopes for clearer skies for cleaning crews later this month.
For more information, call Wickman at 907-874-4304 or Rak at 907-874-3824.
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