South Portland Cleanup!

The inaugural SoPo Neighborhood Cleanup was an organized community event in conjunction with National CleanUp Day. It was hosted by Dirigo Science Connection, with the goal to help preserve the beauty of the Greenbelt Walkway public trail and support conservation efforts of Barberry Creek that runs alongside it. The South Portland Land Trust helped out by supplying litter pickers and heavy duty trash bags, and the President of the Board, Tex Haeuser even joined in the cleanup fun!

The SoPo Neighborhood Cleanup began at the Greenbelt Parking Lot behind Docks Seafood. Participants were given bags and gloves to collect trash while walking along the 1.5 mile route to Wainwright Field. In all, we collected over 70lbs of trash!!

The SoPo Neighborhood Cleanup was followed by lunch at Docks Seafood on the outdoor patio. Docks provided a discount on their Dinghy Bites meals for all participants during lunch on September 21. We are so happy to not only be cleaning up our neighborhood but also supporting local businesses at the same time.

"It's so exciting to see our South Portland community members join together to clean up this beautiful area, not just on National CleanUp Day but every day of the year. Especially the younger kids. It's critical that we instill the importance of conservation early on. My own six-year-old daughter understood, to the point of her saying, "I'm sorry, Earth!"

Dirigo Science Connection looks forward to future cleanups here in the South Portland, ME area.