भिडियो हेर्न को लागि तलको बिज्ञापन लाइ हटाउनुहोस्
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It’s visual, we can see the results, and you’re only asking volunteers for a few hours on one occasion.
If you’ve planned to have the right equipment available, and have enough volunteers and an easily understood game plan, your workers can arrive at 8 or 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and be finished before lunch.
Cleaning up your neighborhood park keeps the people who need to see immediate and tangible results engaged in your neighborhood improvement activities.
A second major advantage to this type of project is that it is easy to incorporate children and youth; at age 3 and up, they can pick up trash. Teenagers can be drawn in, especially if you provide a good-looking T-shirt that passes their fashion test.
In fact, make sure you have plenty of young workers. Cleaning up your neighborhood park is one of the few neighborhood activities where youthful stamina is more critical than good judgment.
Planning the Cleaning Day: What to Do in Advance
First and foremost, begin to recruit volunteers. Having a very rough idea of how many volunteers you will have helps you make wise decisions about priorities. For help in recruiting, take photos of any problematic area of your target park.
Then for inspiration, if you are trying park clean-up for the first time, you may want to circulate an inspirational video about the value of parks, such as the National Recreation and Parks Association’s The Power of Parks.
If you have several parks or your chosen location is large, decide on priorities for cleaning up your neighborhood park. It would be better to finish in an hour and a half and give everyone an opportunity to socialize than to tackle a much too ambitious project and leave people feeling unsuccessful at the end of the morning.
Approach your town or city government to see if they can remove the trash. After all, the government that owns the park should keep it spotless, but the reality of tight budgets is what makes cleaning up your neighborhood park a citizen imperative in many towns and neighborhoods.
If your solid waste collector is a private company, you may need to ask the company directly.
Most local governments will be surprised at your interest in cleaning up your neighborhood park and happy to assist. If not, then your first concern must be where and how you will dispose of what you collect. In most instances, you will be astounded at how much trash there is.
Plan for as much recycling or waste reduction as possible.
If there are no recycling containers ordinarily found in the park, but your town distributes them to residents or businesses, see if they can be temporarily stationed at your park.
Publicize this event to the community at large, unless you intend this to be a committee project. Even then, consider inviting other neighbors, in order to build buy-in for cleaning up your neighborhood park on a periodic basis.
If you have a neighborhood newsletter, publicize the clean-up well in advance.
Think of an intriguing event name if you can. Clean, Green, Lean, and Mean is more exciting than Spring Clean-Up. In smaller towns, your local newspaper may give you plenty of free publicity.
Advise volunteers to bring their own work gloves. In case they don’t, have extras on hand. Even though many park systems don’t allow glass containers, they seem to sneak in and get broken there anyway.
Figure out how to provide water, if there are no fountains in the park. It’s greener to bring some large coolers instead of buying individual plastic bottles of water.
If the weather might be cold, think about whether you want coffee and hot chocolate. You can always have some fruit or pastries if you want to reward your workers.
Paved areas, such as sidewalks, trails, plazas, or tennis or basketball courts, will require some push brooms. Again, your municipality may be a good source of some tools that can be borrowed. In a pinch, a household broom is better than nothing.
If you intend to trim shrubbery or trees, of course you will need appropriate tools. If the park includes a stream, you will want to advise people to wear boots if they have them. Then a few people can get in the stream itself, if conditions are appropriate.
If you plan to clean restrooms or graffiti, specialized cleaners will need to be gathered. Rakes are helpful in some situations.
Have a few minor first aid supplies on hand, and of course bring cell phones in case of any injuries of consequence. Discuss insurance and liability with the local government or homeowners association; you may have to ask folks to sign a waiver.
At the Park Clean-Up
Greet each volunteer warmly and put him or her to work very quickly. The longer people have to wait to be shown where things are and what should be done, the more awkward and apprehensive they become.
Explain to each person clearly where the trash collected is to be placed, and remind him or her not to create more litter while sampling the refreshments. Caution people to be careful with glass and metal.
Often people seem more comfortable working in pairs, and if the area feels at all remote or dangerous, actively encourage this pairing off.
Respect all volunteer efforts, and try not to criticize the results. In a park, if people spend more time joking around than working, you have to respect that too. Chances are that any trash removal or any attempt at trimming or cleaning will be an improvement.
भिडियो हेर्न को लागि तलको बिज्ञापन लाइ हटाउनुहोस्
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