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Saturday, April 25, 2009

Collecting Another Bagful of Trash

I made a cameo appearance at the Saturday cleanup on Trukhaniv Island. (HT: Elmer)



Moroz comin' thru














IMHO, the effort lacked coordination and field resources. There weren’t enough bags for everyone. Some people were promoting corporate brands, some where loafing, and some couldn’t find those bags. I only found one bag. Bagless people would ask me where I found it.




Under the Tree, or 10 Minutes X 10 Square Meters












Mine is the biggest:)!




The Green Party of Ukraine
Is that a hybrid car?




Oleh Skrypka thanks everyone. The next scheduled cleanup: May 16.






There's enough work for everyone...but not enough bags.


I'll be back.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most of the photos and videos were entertaining to watch through, but the following the butterfly video (#4) was a little slow for me :) And the end made me dizzy.

Do people react when you film them, like in community service video #5?

Taras said...

Thank you for commenting!

The videos’ quality indeed sux. It’s due to double compression. (Original size videos would be too slow to upload and process on YouTube.)

You mean, do people react negatively to being filmed? Not really. Some may be a little camera-shy, but, after all, it's a community event, not a private party.

Besides, I wasn't the only “paparazzi” present:)

elmer said...

Every little bit helps.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/04/global_youth_service_day_city.html

Global Youth Service Day, City Year participants turn out for Slavic Village cleanup
Posted by Laura Johnston/Plain Dealer Reporter April 26, 2009 08:08AM
Categories: Real Time News

Lonnie Timmons III/The Plain Dealer
Katie Starr, 15, of Cleveland Heights, laughs while playing a team-building game with her City Year colleagues Saturday afternoon. Together, the more than 100 volunteers cleaned up the streets of Slavic Village as part of Cleveland's first Global Youth Service Day, which featured 17 community-service projects.
The guys raced abandoned tires down the street and dueled over piles of picked-up sticks.

The girls listened to music on their cell phones and laughed and teased.

And in between, on a warm Saturday morning, the youth of City Year beautified a swath of Slavic Village.

The project, like 16 others around Cleveland, marked the city's first foray into the 21-year-old Global Youth Service Day.

"You plant a seed and it's there for a lifetime, this belief in giving back," said Gretchen Faro, executive director of City Year Cleveland. "They learn it's not about making huge change, but it's about making local change, what a difference a painted playground or planted garden can make for how people feel about where they live."

Nationally, 55 percent of youths ages 12 to 18 volunteer, according to the Corporation for National & Community Service. That beats the overall volunteer rate of 27 percent.

Projects on Saturday included preparing the garden at the Hospice of the Western Reserve for spring planting, packing food at the Cleveland Foodbank and playing with children with disabilities at a Mentor school.

"It was awesome," said Sarah Perez-Stable of Youth Challenge, which pairs children with physical disabilities with youth volunteers and on Saturday helped 30 children and volunteers box up donations at the City Mission.

"They were all hanging out having fun, but while they were doing something for others," said Perez-Stable, the volunteer coordinator of the group.

Same goes for City Year, an Americorps program made up of 60 volunteers ages 17 to 24 who spend a year working in schools and on community projects. On Saturdays, they teamed up with the Young Heroes and City Heroes program for middle and high school students to perform community service.

More than 100 City Year participants turned out Saturday in Slavic Village to pick up trash between East 72nd and East 78th streets, till soil in a community garden and clean up an abandoned lot.

A community group called Bring Back the 70s Street Club -- which worked alongside the teenagers, as well as men from court community services and Community Assessment and Treatment Services -- hopes to transform the lot into a basketball court.

"We're going to reverse the wheels on this thing," said Barbara Anderson, the street club's president. "This is how you start, getting people together and doing something immediate."

Together, the group picked up tires and construction cones, empty chip bags, beer bottles, leaves, sticks and other trash. Others learned how to hoe.

"It was fun!" the kids chorused.

They said they joined City Heroes because it gives them something to do, keeps them out of trouble and introduces them to new friends. Plus, they said, they like to help.

"It's really important that youth starts now," said Katie Starr, 15, of Cleveland Heights. "We're going to run the country."

Afterward, they bonded at a newly clean Mural Garden Park, eating hot dogs, throwing footballs and dousing each other with water bottles.

"I think it's great that young people come together all over the world to serve," said Rachel Boyle, a 24-year-old City Year corps member who helped organize the global service day. "This would have taken a couple people a really long time to do."

Anonymous said...

Quite impressive. I always enjoy reading your words, and studying your pictures. It's a feast.

Taras said...

Thank you for the link, Elmer! This is what we should be doing on a regular basis here in Kyiv!

Thank you for the kind words, Anonymous! You are welcome!

Andrew said...

Great job, keep up the green work!

Also how about some thumbnails or an album for the many (yet appreciated) photos you post?

Andrew
http://www.ukrcdn.com

Taras said...

Thank you, Andrew!

Thumbnails? I don't know. To me, this blog already looks a little overwidgetized. It may actually need a cleanup:)