Spring Blitz

It's getting close to spring. In St. Louis all the daffodils are out and it's the first week of March--strange. Up along side the daffodils is all the trash a city seems to sprout continuously. Time to think about cleaning up your home turf. We have something called Operation Brightside, a volunteer effort supported by the city to organize all the wards into blocks with block captains. I'm the block captain for our area and one weekend in April, we clean. The city supplies garbage bags and picks up the trash and heavy items on a certain weekend for each ward.

One year, we got our alumni association to help us clean up our neighborhood because it coincided with our university day of service. This year, we're probably on our own.

Think about where you live and see if you have such a program. If not, organize one. Get your neighbors together one morning in early spring to clean up, plant flowers, just make your neighborhood a better place to live. It doesn't take that much work, and it's a great way to teach your kids about civic mindedness and pride in neighborhood.

In Colorado, we have a similar program. The Colorado Department of Transportation enlists neighborhood associations to clean up along local highways. We go out three times a year, wearing reflective vests and toting showy garbage bags to spruce up the area. C-DOT picks up the trash bags. Within our association, we have an adopt-a-road program to keep those picked up. It would be great to sit back and complain about the trash. I'd rather pick it up and have a place to live I can be proud of. Think about it.