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Date: 4/21/2021
EAST LONGMEADOW – After noticing an increased amount of garbage on the streets in town, several East Longmeadow families came together in creating an Earth Day Town Cleanup to take place on April 24.
Erin Chrusciel, a member of the #ELEarthDay Team, explained the idea to create this event came from taking a walk around town and noticing how trash seems to “appear” each spring after the snow melts.
“Other years, individual neighborhoods pulled trash out of the tree belts, streams and roadsides on their own. After a whole year of being separated from our community due to COVID, we thought it would be great to have a town-wide event where we worked together as a community to clean up,” Chrusciel explained.
The East Longmeadow Parks and Recreation Department has hosted cleanups in previous years, Chrusciel said. She credited East Longmeadow Recreation Director Donna Prather with “setting the foundation” for the event.
“I think our desire to come together after the collective trauma we have all been through with COVID was a big motivator,” Chrusciel said of how the families connected.
She noted that the goal of the families is to set a good example to their children and the community as a whole about the damage that trash can do to the environment, including blocking storm drains, harming wildlife and polluting waterways.
“In the process, we hope to see environmental issues in addition to litter becoming more top of mind in our community,” Chrusciel explained. “We would love to see East Longmeadow take the lead locally in finding other ways to make our community even more focused on issues such as how and what we recycle, using less single use plastics, bringing our own bags to stores and reusable mugs to get coffee.”
She shared that the group hopes their work will carry on past the April 24 event and will go into a partnership with the environmental club at East Longmeadow High School.
“We feel strongly that kids really can lead the #ELEarthDay initiative as we move forward,” Chrusciel said.
The Earth Day Town Cleanup event will take place on April 24, rain or shine, with an 8:30 a.m. kick-off at Center Field. To keep the event interesting, there will be prizes for the largest volunteer team, largest organization, best team name, best #ELEarthDay post and most bizarre trash find.
Cleanup will take place from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Volunteers will bag the trash and the DPW will pick up the bags.
A group of local businesses have come together to sponsor the event and donate prizes. In turn, the #ELEarthDay team is marketing their business or offering their services. Donations from local businesses are tax-deductible, with donations going toward making shirts for participants, prizes, marketing materials and a fund to keep the #ELEarthDay initiative going for next year.
The event is still welcoming volunteers – in fact – Chrusciel said they need more volunteers to cover all of the areas in town that need attention.
To find out more about the event, for information about becoming a sponsor or to sign up to volunteer, go to https://www.erinchrusciel.com/ELEarthDay.