AmeriCorps volunteers assist town with ongoing cleanup
Date: 5/23/2012
May 23, 2012By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.comWEST SPRINGFIELD — Volunteers from AmeriCorps are giving the town a boost with some lingering post-storm cleanup projects.
Director of Public Works (DPW) Robert Colson said the group was scheduled to spend May 15 to 18 working in the Bear Hole Watershed area assisting to clear debris from some of the forested areas heavily impacted by the Oct. 29, 2011 snowstorm. They were also slated to work around the dam and water treatment plant.
He said this work follows on the heels of some Bear Hole area cleanup done by a previous group of AmeriCorps volunteers. About four weeks ago that group "removed three to four tons" of illegally dumped materials in and around the Lost Pond section of the watershed, Colson noted.
Leyla Kayi, volunteer resource and event coordinator for Raising Hope Together Long Term Recover Group (RHT), the West Springfield-based organization responsible for bringing the current group of seven AmeriCorps volunteers — two young men and five young women — to the area remarked, "They really are an inordinately hard-working group of people. What they can do in four hours is pretty amazing."
Colson said in addition to the Bear Hole project, the volunteers would be working with members of the West Springfield Garden Club and the DPW for a few days during the week of May 21 to clean up the area around Santa's House in Mittineague Park.
"They will be cutting trees and clearing brush," Colson said, adding the group would also be clearing storm-related debris from some of Mittineague's more heavily wooded areas and possibly assisting masons to repair the park's stone bridge.
Colson estimated that the eight days of work done by the AmeriCorps volunteers saved the town approximately $10,500. Mayor Gregory Neffinger said by taking advantage of the volunteer's availability he was "attempting to offset the cost" of the town's ongoing storm cleanup efforts.
Kayi said the AmeriCorps volunteers arrived in West Springfield on May 4 and will be in the area until June 10. With the exception of the days working for the town, the group has spent most of their time aiding RHT with ongoing cleanup and rebuilding in the Merrick neighborhood, which was devastated by the June 1, 2011 tornado.
"They have done some interior painting, yard work and debris removal," Kayi said, adding that many yards in that section of town still have branches, stumps and other debris from both the tornado and the snowstorm. They are also helping RHT to prepare an area for a community garden as part of an anniversary event planned to commemorate last year's tornado.
She said the group is scheduled to spend their final week in Western Massachusetts working with Habitat for Humanity in Springfield.
