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Community Corner

Volunteers Pitch in to Clean Rouge River

Residents and civic groups worked together Saturday morning at the city's Lions Park.

More than 100 Boy Scouts, Brownies, church volunteers and neighbors endured bugs, dirt and sweat Saturday morning to clean up a creek at in Plymouth, as part of the annual .

This was the 25th year that the Dearborn-based Friends of the Rouge hosted the multi-community event. Groups of about the same size as in Plymouth spent Saturday morning at 30 sites across Southeast Michigan, pulling weeds, picking up trash and just generally cleaning up various sections and tributaries of the Rouge River.

Down the road in Plymouth Township, volunteers worked to remove weeds and install native plants at a river detention pond at .  At Lions Park, the volunteers gathered at 8:30 a.m. and worked until past noon with shovels, rakes, trash bags, chainsaws and glove-covered hands.

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The youngest workers, a dozen 8-year-old girls from Brownie Troop 40392, could barely jump high enough to throw twigs into a large dumpster. Ron Turner, 73, brought his 12-year-old grandson Steve Turner to help him get a Boy Scout badge for Troop 270 in Livonia.

“It’s bad for the environment when people throw trash in our waterways,” said Steve Turner. “It’s not only bad for the wildlife, it can damage the Earth, and that’s not good for any of us.”

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The volunteers took on different jobs throughout the morning. A group of men hauled out logs from fallen trees, while others removed brush, trash and other debris from the creek. Some Brownies helped along the water, while some girls pounded nails into new bird and bat houses.

Deb Christensen and her two children had a special job – they went from street drain to street drain and spray-painted messages near the sewer grates about not dumping waste that may eventually end up in the water.

“I’ve been helping clean the Rouge at these events since it started, though I had to take a few years off when the kids were young,” she said about 12-year-old Charlie and 9-year-old Ellen, who both held the stencil down while she spray-painted the message. “Now they’re old enough to join us to help make the area a better place.”

City maintenance staff workers Chris Porman and Adam Gerlach were in charge of the event at Lions Park, two small green fields bisected by Burroughs Street, flanked by the creek running along a 10-foot-deep slope. Porman, a 31-year-old from Livonia, has been running the event for Plymouth for the past seven years, but this year he said he’s passing the duties over to Gerlach.

Each year the city rotates the section of water to clean, Porman said.

“We typically get our biggest crowd when we do Lions Park,” he said. “This is a small way we can bring a benefit to the community.”

Volunteers arrived to find gallons of coffee, donuts, work shirts and gloves, water bottles and tools galore to do the job. Most of the materials were provided by the namesake Plymouth Lions Club and local companies.

Dave Kurdziel, a 62-year-old Plymouth city maintenance worker, said he didn’t mind getting up early on a Saturday to come help do the responsible thing.

“If we don’t take care of our community, who will?” he said. “If everyone would take some ownership of the world, the world would be a better place.” 

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