Volunteers clean along interstate
While Saturday morning traffic zoomed past, people of all ages picked through the grass and bagged the trash.
Approximately 100 individuals volunteered to clean up trash alongside U.S. Highway 71 during last Saturday’s Six in Sixty highway cleanup, aiming to clear garbage alongside the roughly six miles of interstate that run through Bella Vista.
Chris Taylor, who runs the Facebook-based Postiviely Bella vista volunteer group, helped organize the event.
“It’s nice; this is our third year,” he said.
It was a fun event to organize and the turnout was satisfactory, he said.
Further, he said, something like this that can bring people together with a common goal might be exactly what Bella Vista needs after residents spent so much time indoors between the covid-19 pandemic and recent harsh weather.
“They been cooped up too long,” he said.
One volunteer, Scott Schooler, manned the grills to prepare brats and hotdogs for everyone who was out gathering garbage.
Schooler said he owns a portable grill that he often uses to feed volunteers and emergency workers.
“This is all I do with this big smoker is stuff like this,” he said. “Love it!”
As volunteers returned, Tim Pschierer, another event organizer, said he was pleased with how the cleanup played out.
While the event was axed last year because of covid-19 concerns, Pschierer said he thinks these cleanups are getting better every year.
“People are coming back; they’re all happy. They did something good,” he said.