Community Corner
Clean Up the Water Tower
The city-wide Spring Clean-up initiative comes to Chestnut Hill.
Spring Cleaning is not limited to junk drawers and living room floors. For the fourth year, Philly Spring Clean-up is encouraging neighbors to take that spiffing-up mentality to the great outdoors.
In Chestnut Hill, the Water Tower Rec Center is the place to meet Saturday, April 2, for the joint cleaning. Barbara Diaz, a pre-school teacher at the center, and one of the organizers of the clean-up, said that the volunteer opportunity is a great family outing.
“It can be a family event; the kids can play on the playgrounds while mom and dad are helping clean up. It is a good outside time for the family. No television or computers or driving mom and dad crazy at home,” Diaz joked.
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The cleaning efforts will take place 9 a.m. – 2 p.m., and Diaz suggests participants dress warm. With the temperatures projected in the 40s, she said, they don’t want volunteers to be uncomfortable or cold. She wants people prepared to be in for the long haul.
That is why coffee and light refreshments will be provided for volunteers, and additional food and drink will be for sale. The Rec Center will also be open for people to warm up or use the bathroom, but all of the cleaning will be outdoors.
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“We are going to be cleaning the baseball field, the front and back playground, mostly everything outside,” Diaz said.
“Not the building, nothing inside the building. Everything is going to be outside. If we get a good amount of cleaners, we can also do something with the basketball court and around the water tower.”
Trash bags, rakes and some gardening gloves will be provided, but Diaz suggests volunteers bring their own gloves in case they are running short on pairs. Other than that, she said, all volunteers need to bring is themselves.
According to Philadelphia’s Streets Department Web site, last year’s Spring Clean-up drew more than 11,000 volunteers, and more than 1,300,000 pounds of trash was removed city-wide.
For the Water Tower clean-up, volunteers can meet at 9 a.m. Saturday behind the Water Tower Rec Center.
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