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Date: 3/31/2021
LONGMEADOW – The Town of Longmeadow will have its first Earth Day Clean Up from 1-4 p.m. on April 11, with a rain-date of May 2.
A group of Longmeadow volunteers will clean up garbage, debris and refuse from 21 sites in the town that include: the area of the Silvio Conte and Fannie Stebbins Conservation area in the Meadows, Laurel & Bliss Parks, the town green, Turner Park, Greenwood Park, school yards and athletic fields.
“Everybody’s had a difficult year of being cooped up and not doing much. All of the opportunities to be engaged in our communities have been pretty much on hold,” said Co-chairs Andrea Chasen and Laurie Robinson of this first Longmeadow-wide earth day clean up. “This seemed like a safe way from a COVID[-19] point of view to allow people to show their civic mindedness to educate around the issue of litter and to also get the benefit of cleaning up the town. This is the first and we’re looking to do this on an annual basis.”
Robinson and Chasen are both members of an organization called the Longmeadow Environmental Transitions Group that is helping to sponsor this event. The group has been around for over 12 years to help the community transition from fossil fuel use to a more sustainable way.
“The organization has added a lot of activities to its original mission and part of that is really focusing on issues of sustainability and education; working to advocate on behalf of environmental issues and providing that information to the town,” said Chasen. “We’ve all been meeting by Zoom and one of the things that we’ve all come to appreciate even more through this past year is our green spaces.”
In appreciating those green spaces, Chasen said they became aware that there’s more litter than they would like to have in the community. By the end of January, Chasen and Robinson came up with the idea of getting a few people together to do an Earth Day clean up. Since then, the women have had an outpouring of response and both said they strongly feel this is the right thing to do at the right time.
Robinson said, “One of the most exciting points of this is this huge outpouring of volunteerism. We’ve had people literally from all age groups down from the Boy and Girl Scout troops to high school and college students and then a lot of citizens of all ages, so it really expands the spectrum and people seem really excited to be doing this.”
For those who wish to participate, masks are a necessity, they should wear work gloves, boots and bring a water bottle for refreshment. Garbage bags will be provided, but tools such as rakes can be useful if the volunteer has them. Robinson and Chasen will discuss the physical distancing when they send people out to the various sites. There will be team leaders who are going to be enforcing the social distancing and mask rules.
“We’re hoping that part of this process of going through cleaning up is going to really start cementing the idea in people, and all the ages, that what you throw away for convenience now is going to have a negative impact long-term, and really try to see if we change some of our habits around,” Chasen expressed.
Robinson added, “We want people to see that there’s more trash than maybe they realized. I have to put myself in that category – when Andrea first told me that she’s seen so much trash I would say, ‘I don't see that much trash,’ but when you’re looking for it, you find it; it’s there. We want to make people aware and slowly start to change some of their habits.”
For more information, visit www.longmeadow.org/earthday2021. Due to the outpouring of support from the community, Chasen and Robinson have reached capacity. Still, they are suggesting people can support this effort to make “Longmeadow sparkle” by walking around their own streets and picking up litter.