(Left to right: Tom Day, Trevor Hall, Bill Tankersley, LouAnn Parker, Fritz Renner, Mike Weiner, Lizzy Largin, Greg Parker, Catherine Largin, Mike Wilson) Just yesterday, I caught up with Mike Wilson, who gathered some of his friends together via Facebook to help clean up the roadsides in his local community. The fruits of their labor were plentiful. Here is what Mike had to say…

“It went really well. We had a bunch of people come out and did a little barbecue afterwards. Everybody met up here in the park at Squaw and…grabbed gloves, vests, and trashbags and we cleaned the road out to River Ranch, which is as far as Caltrans said we could go, and then part of the way out to Truckee. There were a decent number of people who showed up and we were able to clean up quite a bit. We found all sorts of…random stuff like cell phones, a little wireless card for a computer, six or seven diapers, a turd…beer cans, soda cans, a lot of nuts, bolts and screws.”

Did you collect more trash than you thought you would?

“Oh, it was disgusting! I think the whole community should have to come out and clean for a day just to see how gross it is. I mean, every hundred yards I’d fill up an entire trash bag….I literally picked up thousands of cigarette butts. I spent the first hour that I was cleaning just at the intersection of Squaw Valley Rd. and 89 by those stoplights, and the first hour was just picking up cigarette butts there. The 7-Eleven was disgusting, but I think that’s kind of to be expected. A lot of people just grab something real quick and toss wrappers out their windows. I could have spent at least three or four hours just at 7-Eleven with a crew…”

Were you pleased with the turn-out?

“It turned out pretty well. I’d love to see more kids our age come out and support the clean-up. The whole idea…is to try to get more kids our age involved in this sort of stuff. I am kind of disappointed to see that…it was mostly Squaw Valley homeowners that came out rather than our friends, you know? Everyone always says that they’re proud to be from Tahoe and we all talk about how beautiful it is, but I really expected more people to show up to help clean up the community.”

When will the next community clean-up be?

“I think we’re going to try to  have another clean-up right after the 4th of July, and then another one in September, both of which will be headed up by the Squaw Valley Homeowner’s Association.”


 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 replies on “Mike Wilson and Friends Clean Up Highway 89 & Squaw Valley Rd.”