South Lorain effort

On April 26, Southview Middle School students Anthony Tipton, 14, and Fernando Medina Jr., 13, were among the youths who visited Lorain City Hall to explain their concept for community service: cleaning the East 36th Street Ditch.

“I was impressed,” Feuerstein said.

Once the city approved, Medina and Tipton were as good as their word and came out with family members on May 20 to clean up mowed grass and litter along the ditch.

“This was their project,” said Steven Whitely, youth coordinator for the 231 Go! Project, a community collaborative funded by United Way of Lorain County. “They picked environmental justice for their projects this year.”

In South Lorain, the middle school students were joined by high school students in the PACE program, which is Promoting Achievement through Community Education.

The high schoolers received their marching orders from adviser Mike Ferrer.

“If it doesn’t grow, pick it up,” he said, as the students stepped off the roadway Melissa Gnizak of Invest Lorain, Antonio Barrios of the Lorain Arts Council and Sylvia Duvall of the National Council of Negro Women planned the inaugural “Adopt-A-Square” program for volunteers to plant flowers in the open areas in the sidewalks along Broadway in Lorain this year.

into the grassy area along the East 36th Street ditch.

Armed with rakes, a weed trimmer and hedge clippers, the students filled eight garbage bags in less than 10 minutes, so one went to grab more.

“You know what that’s called? Developing a system,” Ferrer said. “I would put garbage bags in my pocket. Developing a system that works.”

They began along the ditch south of Oakwood

Park and worked heading east to meet the group of Southview Middle School students that started near Grove Avenue and were moving west.

“These kids worked hard on this project,” said Rebecca Tipton, who came out with Anthony and husband Andrew Tipton. Although Anthony is in seventh grade, it was far from his first community cleanup, his mother said.

Anthony and his older brother have done service projects in Oberlin and Elyria, Rebecca Tipton said.

“I’ve always been big with them on community service,” she said. “You’ve got to give back to your community.”

As a group they worked with Terrence Brown Jr., 10, and his grandparents, Tammy Loudermilk Wiley and William Wiley; and Fernando Medina Sr., who accompanied his son Fernando.

Anthony Tipton assisted on land as Samuel Soto, 13, also a student at Southview Middle School, donned hip waders to get into the water of the ditch.

They found hubcaps, large metal caps that would cover buckets or drums, and bottles, cans and broken glass.

It was Soto’s first time out cleaning South Lorain.

His first impression: “A lot of work,” Soto said. “And some fun.”