Highway Clean-Up 7/31

So I realize I am writing about our activities way after it has happened.  However, I feel that is a commendable activity and still worth reporting on to let people know what we do for our community!  I’ am sure everyone can appreciate community service : )

9 am Saturday morning, July 31st found a 9-person crew of Ohio Roller Girls skaters and staff gathered outside of the residence of skater Paige Bleed who was gone, representing OHRG in all day county-fair scrimmage-craziness.   The fact that it was waaay too early in the morning (okay yes, I am being dramatic, but I HATE mornings!) actually was beneficial because the temperature had yet to climb.  The day was sunny and it was actually quite lovely.  Joining the crew this year were a handful of rookies (who we are VERY excited to welcome to the team)!  Highway clean-up always represents a great time to bond over gross-trash finds and to beautify our community.

Driving on the stretch of 70 that is just west of downtown a freeway-green road sign demarcates the following stretch of road to be under the clean-up care of “the Ohio Roller Girls”  It is pretty neat to see the league’s name on an official road sign (and its OHRG colors!! lol).  This is the second year that OHRG has been a proud participant in the Ohio Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Adopt-a Highway Program.  Our stretch of highway is between the Hague and Broad Street exits on 70 E/W.  We are in charge of keeping clean both sides of the freeway, which totals to about 2 miles of road. 

Everyone geared up with neon yellow safety vests, trash bags, and neon orange trash-pickers.  We split into two packs; one car went to the short side and the other went to the longer side of the freeway.  Parts of the road have grassy medians, but OHRG is not responsible for those, as it would be very dangerous for someone to run across a highway road.  So if you must litter, at least throw it on the shoulder where we can get it : p

I was with the group picking up the long side.  We stayed together mostly, with some people fanning out along the roadside and others climbing up the embankment to wrestle tangled plastic bags from shrubbery.  We basically walk along our stretch and pick up any trash littered along the roadway.  It is fun because we just get to chat and share the experience of weird highway finds together.  My favorite thing about trash-pickup is our main tool, the trash-picker.  This awesome contraption is about3 feet long and it grabs the trash when the handle is squeezed.  The grabber was a lot of fun to use and it saved all of us from a lot of bending and icky-touching (though YES, we certainly had gloves on!).  The trash-picker worked reeeally well and made picking up trash fun, like a game.  Bags filled up quickly. Honestly, it always surprises just how much trash we pick up.  Just on our stretch alone, we FILLED nearly a dozen (or maybe more) large orange bags.

Two and a half hours later we reconvened and looked back on the spotless grass mile.  The orange bags were tied off and sitting roadside, waiting to be picked up.  Hubcaps, plastic bags, and beer cans (?!?!?#$@#$) were among the popular finds (come on folks!  open containers..tisk tisk!).  About 90% of the trash picked up was plastic — mostly shopping bags from the grocery store and food wrappers.  The weirdest find of the day was a DVD containing adult content! 

The Ohio Roller Girls participates in the Adopt-A-Highway program as a way to contribute to our community.  Members of the Ohio Roller Girls and all of the activities in which they participate in are all volunteer.  Hellion who coordinates this particular trash-pick-up volunteer effort said that adopting a highway is beneficial in three major ways.  First, by us volunteering in this program we are actually saving taxpayers and the city a lot of money by doing trash-pickup work.  Second that by working together on a project we are bonding more solidly as a team, a strength that will surely show itself on the track.  Lastly, the benefit that can be found with most volunteer work, is that we can all feel good about ourselves for doing something good for our city. 

Rookie Bam Bam bunny agreed, “I must say…it was really nice to do something with the league that was also good for our community. It felt good to get all that junk off the side of the road and make Columbus (or at least our little part of it) a more clean and beautiful place. I am definitely in for next time .”

There wil be another highway clean-up scheduled later in the year.  So come out and join us!  Thanks to all of our volunteers, skaters and just awesome friends as well!