Neighbors pitch in to clean up outer East Portland

Take a look at the dumpsters, filled full of trash! You won’t believe how many TONS of trash were taken out of the neighborhoods – in this, another example of neighbors volunteering to do good, right in their own area …

Standing in front of just one of the many dumpsters they filled at the clean-up event are Andy Flick, a volunteer with Freedom foursquare Church; the organizer, Brenda McSweeney, Chair of Glenfair Neighborhood Association; and Scott Bradley, from Abundant Life Church.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton
Dismayed that an area-wide Neighborhood Clean-up event hadn’t been organized in this year outer East Portland, Brenda McSweeney, Chair of the Glenfair Neighborhood Association, stepped up and organized a May 15 event.

As cars, trucks, and vans pulled into the MAX Light Rail parking lot on SE 122^nd Avenue at E. Burnside Street, McSweeney told us, “I think it’s really necessary to give people an easy way to get rid of junk and debris around their homes. It makes for better, and cleaner, neighborhoods.”

Mike Vander Veen, AmeriCorps worker, and volunteer and Christopher Masciocchi, a volunteer with the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association, carry an abandoned sofa to its resting place.

Another good reason for such an event is that it brings neighbors together, for the good of their community, McSweeney added.

Even though the cleanup was put together on short notice, just over 10 tons of debris and scrap metal – and three complete bicycles, which folks had fixed up for needy neighbors – were collected in the morning-long event, which was staffed by 41 volunteers.

Volunteer Jim Blatt, a volunteer from the Wilkes Community Group, helps sort trash at the clean-up.

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