Volunteer Airdrie is looking for 60 to 75 volunteers to take part in Alberta Transportation’s annual Highway Cleanup Campaign May 5, starting at 9 a.m.
Dave Maffitt, chair of Volunteer Airdrie’s board of directors, said the annual event is a great family-volunteering opportunity that ends up being a lot of fun.
“If it’s a nice day, it’s a great day to be outside, helping clean up our environment and beautify the Airdrie area,” he said.
Volunteer groups across the province take part in the Highway Cleanup Campaign each spring, cleaning litter from along Alberta’s major highways. Volunteer Airdrie will cover a stretch of Highway 2 from Airdrie’s north city limit down to the Highway 566 overpass.
“Officially, we’ve been assigned 15 kilometres (km) of highway and we have to do both sides of the highway,” Maffitt said.
Groups of three or four volunteers will sweep the ditches along both sides of the highway, picking up litter in manageable stretches of two to three km.
“What we’ve found is that in the space of four, five, six hours, people if they can get two or three km done, that’s pretty much the limit,” Maffitt said.
“If we can count on each team to do about three km, we would need, at a minimum, 40 volunteers.”
Maffitt said there is still lots of space available for volunteers, with only a dozen registered so far.
He added volunteers don’t need to attend for the whole day. People are free to volunteer for as long as they can, and are welcome to arrive and leave as they need.
“We’re going to have people shuttling people from our base of operation, which will be the parking lot on the north side of Co-op near the car wash,” he said.
“We’ll be mustering there at the start of the day and telling people where to go, and then shuttling people out to those places. As people need to leave, we’ll be picking them up and bringing them back to that point.”
While there is no age limit for the event, Maffitt said parents will need to decide if their children are old enough to help out. He said anyone six years old or older should be fine.
For safety reasons, children will not be allowed near the highway during the cleanup and must stay further in the ditch near the fence line.
Alberta Transportation will lend support throughout the day, providing signage, vests, garbage bags and gloves. They will also pick up all the garbage that has been collected. Snacks and water will also be provided – volunteers will only need to bring sunscreen, sunglasses and a hat.
Maffitt said the event will proceed rain or shine, and volunteers should dress for the weather.
Email [email protected] for more information and a link to register online.
