Volunteers keep town landscapes beautiful

Date: 9/7/2010

Sept. 6, 2010

By Debbie Gardner

Assistant Managing Editor

LONGMEADOW -- You might have noticed them cutting rosebushes at the tennis courts one Saturday morning this summer. Or, on another Saturday, you might have spotted them clearing weeds and trimming bushes on the grounds of Center or another school.

Those weed pullers and brush cutters are members of a dedicated group of volunteers who, for the past three years, have donated a portion of their Saturdays to help keep the grounds around the town's schools, parks and public buildings neat and clean.

"This group got started about four years ago," founder and email contact person Bill Morey told Reminder Publications. "It was about the time kids get ready to go back to school. I was personally walking through the baseball diamond at Glenbrook [Middle School] and noticed weeds had taken over the backstop."

He said he figured kids would lose their baseballs in the overgrowth and decided to take it upon himself to clear the backstop.

He contacted Michael Wrabel, director of Longmeadow's Public Works Department (DPW) to let him know what he'd planned.

"Wrabel said before I did anything, he had to OK it," Morey said. "I told him I was going to start at nine [the next morning]."

Morey got the OK to proceed with his plan, and, as he worked on the brush, attracted the attention of some residents walking their dogs near the schoolyard.

"They asked what I was doing, and some said they wanted to help. It's grown from there," he said. "We're a bunch of guys and gals doing things."

Morey communicates with the volunteers -- who now number about 23 -- via email, letting everyone know what project the group is planning to tackle each week.

"I generally get from five to eight people on any given weekend," he said. The volunteers work from "nine to noon, or 10 to noon," then knock off and continue any remaining work at a given site the following Saturday.

"We look for messes and try to fix them," he said, adding that the volunteers and DPW have, in a way, become partners in keeping the town's landscaping up to snuff.

"They generally pick up anything we have ready [for disposal] at the end of a Saturday morning," Morey said.

"They've been invaluable to us," Wrabel said. "They work at probably every one of the schools. Longmeadow has some very giving people."

He said in a time of reduced manpower and monies to hire outside contractors, maintaining all the town's properties has sometimes been a challenge.

"Longmeadow is a community that has high expectations and these volunteers help us to meet those expectations," he said, likening them to the volunteers he saw in national parks this summer.