Community Clean Up at Carr Park was a Great Success!

This text is cross posted from Greening Grace, the blog of environmental stewardship from Grace Episcopal Church in Medford.

On Saturday, May 7th, over 20 adults and children gathered for a community cleanup at Carr Park as part of the Green Up Clean Up effort organized by Grace Church. It was a beautiful spring day and volunteers quickly spread out around the park picking up trash and recycling, raking leaves and painting benches.

Local residents Cecilia Talamantes and Joan Cyr coordinated the efforts of volunteers from the church and local residents. While many people came intentionally to help clean the park, some volunteers joined on the spot. One mother, who was following her young son who was picking up trash, said "We came to play in the park, but he says he doesn't want to play, he wants to help out!" John Falco of the School Committee was at the baseball field with his sons for a little league game, but stopped to help pick up trash and rake leaves with his youngest son.

Unfortunately after about 50 minutes of cleaning it started to rain and a light sprinkle quickly became a down pour with lighting and thunder. Many of the workers tried to wait out the rain, but eventually they realized that they had done a solid job on the park and there was no end to the rain in sight. They consolidated the bags of trash and recycling down to just a few and loaded the equipment provided by Medford's DPW back onto the DPW truck for later pickup.

It was a rewarding and fun afternoon and we look forward to several more successful community clean ups over the coming weeks:

 • May 14th - 9AM-12PM Wrights Pond - Rev. Noah Evans

• May 14th - 10AM -2PM Brooks Estate (adults only) - Allison Andrews

 • May 15th - 1-3 PM Playstead Park - Medford Brownie Troop 65007

 • June 4th - 10AM-12PM Barry Park - Chris DesAutels

 • June 18th - 9-11 AM Cummings Park - Laura Brebreton