Volunteer opportunities Saturday at county cleanup
Laurens County, SC – The Laurens County Chamber of Commerce has set this Saturday, Sept. 16, as the quarterly Beautify Laurens County Clean Up morning, and the chamber office has asked for all volunteers who can participate.
“We’d like them to call and let us know where they are going so we can get the bags picked up afterward,” said Nicole Firmin with the Laurens County Chamber of Commerce, “and they can come by beforehand for vests, gloves and trash bags.”
The materials are provided to the Chamber by Palmetto Pride, a non-profit organization dedicated to the state’s anti-litter goals.
The chamber also likes to be able to follow up to gather information such as the numbers of volunteers, locations and the amount of trash.
Some groups that participate are registered with the Department of Transportation’s Adopt a Highway program, which includes a group of friends who grew up together and organized a clean-up crew.
“We have a group of guys who grew up together, and we adiopted South Harper Street Extension,” said Kerwin Tribble, the director of the City of Laurens Streets and Sanitation Department. Tribble has led groups on the quarterly clean-up days for several years, but he and his friends just formed the Adopt a Highway group recently.
“We do it on the quarterly days, and the first time we gathered 48 bags and then the second time we got everything in 12 bags.”
Tribble’s crews are often having to clean up roadsides, so it helps with city expenses when volunteer groups help out on the Saturday events.
He also points to the increase in usage of the city’s recycling center as another reason he believes the city is seeing less litter.
The City of Laurens recycling center, located on Caroline Street, is manned from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and is open for use as long as the items have already been cleaned and sorted and placed in respective bins.
Anyone interested in getting more information on next Saturday’s volunteer opportunity or in registering a team may call the chamber at 864-833-2716.
