POSTED: October 4, 2009
By APRIL DIODATO
OBSERVER Staff Writer
Whenever Rich Cimino is walking down the street and spots an errant bottle or candy wrapper, he picks it up. If others followed suit, he reasons, litter wouldn't be a problem.
Twenty others who share Cimino's sentiment joined him in front of the Adams Art Gallery at noon on Saturday, where they informally assembled for the Dunkirk Cleanup. Held each spring and fall since 2007, the fifth cleanup amassed its biggest turnout yet. The mild, sunny weather and word of mouth helped the cleanup group grow to nearly twice its usual size.
Co-organizer Josh Curry-Bascome smiled as he surveyed the volunteers as they chatted and waited for more to arrive. One of his favorite aspects of this grassroots effort to keep local streets clean, he explained, is that "everyone is here because they want to be."
Mike Tate of Tate's Painting provided rubber gloves, garbage bags and took care of trash removal. The volunteers were scattered throughout Dunkirk but stayed linked with the use of their cell phones.
After divvying up the group and assigning locations, the voluntary trash collectors took to the streets. Target areas were Washington Park, along Central Avenue from Sixth Street to the pier, Third Street from Route 60 to Robin Street, near the Rural Ministry, and along Fifth and Sixth streets.
As Cimino drove to Third Street to begin cleaning up, he explained the idea behind the project. It originated when Cimino was a student at SUNY Fredonia and met environmental and peace-promoting groups on campus.
"It was meeting with those certain people; the ones who are progressive thinkers - (that's) who I pitched the whole idea to for a Dunkirk Fredonia cleanup," Cimino said. His plan was met with enthusiasm and the first two cleanups were held in Fredonia. He hoped that once he "got the ball rolling," his effort would grow to include Dunkirk, on which the cleanup was specifically focused this time.
"It's unfortunate; there's not a lot of local support," Cimino said. "A lot of times it's more college kids. It's bizarre - it blows me away. Kids that aren't even from around here are willing to clean up."
"I was just talking to (the volunteers) - a lot of them are either vegetarians or vegans, and they've been doing this stuff wherever they were from," Cimino said. "It's a mindset, I guess, really - it's not instilled in people here as much."
A group of eight from Alpha Phi Omega, a community service organization from SUNY Fredonia, worked in Washington Park. Michelle Swackhammer of Jamestown, Peter Marshfield of Ohio and Leslie Porter, originally of Michigan, discovered several articles of clothing left in the park.
"I'm kind of afraid to reach down into my (garbage) bag. There's some pretty gross stuff in there," Porter said.
Chelsea Mink of Alpha Phi Omega worked alone, walking along in the park and surveying the ground for trash.
"We're actually doing something similar to this in November the day after Halloween; going down to the creek and cleaning up the bottles," Mink said.
Members of LOUD, the Latino Club from Jamestown Community College's Dunkirk campus, worked along Third Street. Jerry McGarrity, advisor of LOUD, wore a neon yellow T-shirt displaying the acronym for his organization: "Latino Outreach Understanding Determination."
"We found a brick, a piece of a light, a rubber glove..." McGarrity said as he worked near the corner of Central Avenue and Third Street.
LOUD member Christopher Tanner of Brocton, six weeks into his first semester at JCC, explained that his adviser had heard of the cleanup and told the rest of the organization.
"We were planning to do a cleanup in Dunkirk, too, and this just happened to happen," Tanner said. The club plans to become more involved in the next cleanup and to bring even more members along.
The cleanup lasted until 3 p.m. and the group enjoyed pizza and provided by Eve's Cuisine afterward.
Cimino seemed very pleasantly surprised by the increase in number of participants pitching in at the event. Twenty full bags of garbage were collected.
"We're progressing and gaining headway," Cimino said. "It ended up being perfect - everything went off without a hitch."
He hopes that his project will inspire his neighbors to keep the local area clean.
"I'm from around here so I'm trying to, in the end, trying to help out this town," Cimino said.
Source: http://www.observertoday.com/
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