Talkin’ Trash: Earth Day Main Street Cleanup

Main Street is the living room of each community, the area we all end up in at least once a day. This is where we stop to chat, sit down to eat a meal, and go to be entertained. And like any living room, Main Street can get messy. Whether your eyes make a beeline straight toward the litter, carelessly thrown on the ground, or you anxiously glide over it, hoping someone else will pick it up if you leave it lying long enough, that litter is ominously waiting in the background. A shared experience we’ve all had is the sinking feeling when someone walks in on your mess before you’ve cleaned it, ears burning in embarrassment, hoping they don’t judge you.

When Main Street is dirty, everyone notices. Visitors are less likely to stop, waiting for the next town down the road with a little more curb appeal, and businesses are left to wonder what they’re doing wrong. Just like a living room, with a little time and effort, Main Street can be cleaned.

12 of the 14 volunteers

This year, we gathered volunteers on Earth Day and gave Baker’s Main Street the spring cleaning it needed. After meeting for a quick game plan, 14 volunteers set off with trash bags in hand to pick up as much litter as possible in an hour.

We found just about one of everything in this four-block radius. Mail, broken bottles, cans, a concerning amount of black Sharpie markers, hundreds of cigarette butts, socks, and boxes, to name just a few. The strangest was a broken camp chair that had been outside for several years, the weeds and dirt halfway covering it. Somebody’s good time must have ended in a sudden fall to the ground, and the chair sat abandoned. After a long tenure as a local landmark, it has finally been retired to a nearby dumpster. 

Our smallest hands gave us the biggest inspiration. The youngest volunteers, still unsteady on their feet, beamed with pride as they dropped scraps into bags to the cheers of their parents. Another older boy jumped into Baker Lake to pull out a box that was too far out to reach, lending no care to the water and muck in his socks. 

In one hour, our volunteers collected 15 bags of litter (and one chair) from Baker’s Main Street and out of the lake. The difference is visible, and the pride is infectious! We are incredibly thankful to everyone who rolled up their sleeves to help clean up Main Street.