Kodiak Kindness’ Sweep Into Fall community cleanup set a record last year with a crew of volunteers picking up about 3,600 pounds of trash.. This year, the group blew way past that.
“As of noon on Thursday the 24th, we were (at) over 17,000 pounds of trash,” said Heather Preece, the nonprofit’s outgoing executive director.
She said they’ve been doing some heavy lifting.
“It’s not just like wrappers and water bottles and things – cans and sodas by the side of the road,” she said. “We’ve done some major cleanup of appliances and couches and old rusty boats and chassis and trailers and parts of cars and engine blocks and tires.”
Crews and trucks have been helping volunteers after they report heavier items just sitting around trails. One of the unique finds was a snow machine that Preece estimates had been sitting near a trail for over half a century.
The cleanup window is longer this year too – it used to be just a few days but now the group is pushing for 10 days of conscientious cleanup. But all of the trash picked up so far is before the nonprofit has even started its big final push, what Preece calls “Blitz Day.”
She said the idea of doing a fall clean up is that the spring cleanups surrounding Earth Day are important, but it’s good to do check-ins year round.
“The summer season is when everybody’s outside and using all these recreation areas, then it gets buried under the snow for the winter, and then we have to clean it up again in the spring,” Preece added. “We thought, what if we make a dent in that by cleaning up in the fall?”
Preece said she knew she wanted to break last year’s trash pick-up record and enlisted a flurry of businesses and nonprofits to help. She partnered with Island Trails Network and regional Alaska Native corporations, like Lesnoi Inc. and Koniag, which manage several popular recreation areas around the road system.
Sponsorships from Matson and Credit Union 1 also helped pay waste fees, Nick’s Auto Wrecking and Towing and Kodiak Island Borough’s landfill also helped.
She credits the cleanup success to all of the partnerships and especially the volunteers.
“The more the merrier – it’s just built up every year more and more,” Preece said. “And the more people and organizations that get involved, the more impact that we’ve had.”
Blitz Day, on Oct. 26, is expected to bring the total number of volunteers to over 100 people registered to help clean up the Kodiak community.
