OHRG hits the highway and leaves it sparkly

Loraine Acid reports on the ongoing Highway Cleanup Project:

Nine A.M. Saturday morning, found a 10-person crew of Ohio Roller Girls skaters and staff gathered outside of the residence of our day’s taskmaster: Hellion BOI. We were all gathered for a good cause; highway-clean-up.

Driving on the stretch of I-70 that is just west of downtown, a green road sign reveals a stretch of highway 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 in OHRG colors!). For nearly a year and a half now, 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.

We split into two packs; one car went to the short side and two cars went to the longer side of the freeway. Two and a half hours later we reconvened and looked back on the spotless grass mile. Nearly a dozen orange bags were tied off and sitting roadside, waiting to be picked up. Included among the day’s finds were large pieces of rubber wheels, hub caps, and wood planks.

The Ohio Roller Girls participates in the Adopt-A-Highway program to fulfill their civic duty. All activities in which the Ohio Roller Girls participate are volunteer. Hellion, who coordinates this particular 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, a benefit found with most volunteer work, is the good feeling we receive for doing something good for our city.

We still have one more clean-up scheduled before the close of 2009 and it will be interesting to see what kind of stuff lands itself on our stretch of road within the next couple of months.