Bath time for Moses Lake, again

City wide clean up a popular mixture of community spirit, hard work

It was bath time for Moses Lake and the residents turned out to enjoy the sunshine and give the city a good scrubbing.

Sponsored by Vision 2020, the Moses Lake Business Association and a number of private businesses, the Annual City Wide Spring Clean Up took place this past weekend, with an early unofficial tally of nearly 200 people participating and of five tons of garbage collected during two days of work.

On Friday, students from institutions such as the Moses Lake Christian Academy did their share of dirty work. Saturday, it was everybody else's turn.

Crews of neighbors and friends covered a myriad of spots throughout the city, from Interstate 90 to Stratford Road, Highway 17 and Airway Drive. From the very beginning, the Clean Up had the makings of a friendly get-together than of a day of labor under the heat.

"It's a good idea to have these clean ups," said Amy Anderson, tidying up a section of Yonezawa Boulevard alongside her husband Ed, while their daughter Sophie watched from a stroller. "It's a good thing for families to get involved in."

Anderson said that she heard about the event through her church, where people had been encouraged to sign up. She suggested that people caught littering should be required to sign up for the Clean Up.

Families were not the only ones kneeling and squatting to give the city a friendlier appearance. Students from the Columbia Basin Job Corps showed up and had the impressive task of picking up garbage on a beeline from McCosh Park all the way to Wal-Mart.

Levi Kennedy, one of the CBJC youths praised the people organizing the Clean Up for putting together "something we all can take part to live in a healthy environment. "It's been lots of fun," he said.

Businesses, ranging from clothing stores to banks brought volunteer teams to the Clean Up, as well.

Kathy Mitchell from Team Key Bank said the Clean Up was a fun way to help the community.

"We had a blast," she said. "We want to do it every year."

Mitchell said that fun was only part of it.

"It was a real eye-opener," she said. "We had no idea there was that much garbage."

Conversely, Alan Heroux from the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce said that the amount of garbage collected diminished from past years. "The roads were a lot cleaner," he said. "Hopefully that means the community is not littering as much."

Parks and Recreation director Spencer Grigg, whose crew worked near the Grant County Fairgrounds said that garbage littering is a perennial problem for cities.

"There is always someone who does not recognize the value of having a clean community," he said, adding that the recent high winds had made cleaning up the city a slightly more difficult task, moving things around.

Still, he declared himself impressed that the community would "take time on a beautiful Saturday to come roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty."

After the Clean Up, which took up most of the morning for those involved, crews returned to McCosh Park, from where they had dispersed and enjoyed hamburgers and hot dogs courtesy of a local restaurant. By noon, the crowds had dissipated and the Clean Up was yet another clipping in the large scrapbook of Moses Lake community spirit.

"I would not know if (the Clean Up) can go better than this," said Dale Good, one of the people organizing it. "It went 157 percent well."

The next Clean Up is scheduled for October of this year.