Despite the temperatures and wind, the Stanton Heights Community Cleanup was a complete success! Thank you to everyone who participated! Click here or on the photo at left to check out photos from the event.  The community would like to extend a special thank you to event organizer Michael Sturges, who for the second year in a row spent countless hours to make the clean up possible. Michael gave the following recap:

Volunteers:  We had 32 volunteers for the event. Thanks so much to  the residents of Stanton Heights and Citizen Care Inc. for your commitment to this project.Clean up statistics:  The clean up focused on the Stanton and Woodbine greenspace as well as parts of Woodbine St., Coleridge St., and Christopher St.

These are the numbers:

• 500 pounds of mixed unbagged debris,
• 100 pounds of scrap metal,
• 6 tires,
• 35 bags of garbage, 
• 5  bags of invasive species (japanese knotweed).

All of this debris was left on the intersection of Stanton and Woodbine until DPW can pick it up.  We were also able to remove 5 buckets of garlic mustard which will be composted. About 50 vines were removed but left on site.  In addition to this, we were able to move 8 tons of concrete from the Stanton and Woodbine greenspace to be recycled.  A special thanks to Mark Biggs of Sharper Cut LLC for donating his dumptruck and time to move this concrete.

Flower bed :  A special thanks to the volunteers who helped to plant the flower bed and to Mike Rizk for donating the mulch for the bed.

Storm drains:  We were also able to use a stencil to spray the storm drains around the greenpace to say DO NOT DUMP WASTE DRAINS TO RIVER. Thanks to PWSA for the stencil and paint and for donating 100 bottles of water for the thirsty volunteers.

Although we did not have as many volunteers as last year, we still accomplished a lot.  We still removed the same tonnage of concrete as last year–8 tons.  We removed less litter and illegally dumped items but this is because we did such a good job removing it last year and we have not had a lot of return dumping except for concrete and landscaping debris. There was noticeably less garlic mustard on the site than last year, however there was an increase of japanese knotweed which will need to be a focus for future years.

Urban Ecostewards:  A group of Urban EcoSteward volunteers has been working on this greenspace since  last years clean up to remove illegally dumped items and invasive species. Bevery Stennett, Jennifer Sturges Trillium Reynolds and her sons should all be applauded for their efforts working up to this clean up.  Let us know if you would like to join this group of volunteers in the future.

Staying on top of future dumping:  To all Stanton Heights residents, we could really use your help with keeping an eye on future dumping.  We need to be vigilant  and need to move dumped materials out of the property ASAP so that people realize that we are a community that will not look the other way anymore.

Community Park:  The Stanton Heights Neighborhood Association will be getting word out about future meetings to discuss  the proposal of a community park on the greenspace.  A meeting date of April 29th is currently set but a time and location has not been chosen.Thank you Stanton Heights Neighborhood Association for donating lunch for the volunteers, thank you Allegheny CleanWays for the supplies and support.