Green Up Day Preview

BEEMAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL students pose with some of the garbage they picked up around their school Monday morning as part of an early Green Up Day effort. Vermont’s Green Up Day, set for Saturday, May 5, usually draws 15,000 residents for a statewide cleanup.

Independent photo/Trent Campbell

April 26, 2007

By MEGAN JAMES

ADDISON COUNTY — Weybridge resident Megan Sutton has big Green Up Day shoes to fill. Her mother, Erica Wonnacott, was the community organizer of a bare bones, yet consistently successful road-cleaning event for many years before she died five years ago.

“She told me, not quite on her death bed, ‘I’ve given them your name,’” Sutton said. “So I’ve been doing it for the past five or six years.”

Like her mother did before her, Sutton likes to keep it simple, signing residents up on a road map and letting them organize their own day of greening up.

But over the years, Sutton, like organizers all over the state, has helped transform that first Saturday in May into a deep-rooted community tradition. This year’s Green Up Day is May 5 — a week from Saturday.

With more than 15,000 Vermonters participating and at least 200 tons of trash gleaned from the roadsides every year, Green Up Day — started in 1970 at the suggestion of  Robert S. Babcock, a reporter for the Burlington Free Press, by then-Gov. Deane Davis — it is a practice unique to Vermont.

Sutton said she recently heard Peter Berle, former president of the National Audubon Society of New York, on the radio talking about Earth Day as a national clean-up day. She was disappointed, she said, that he didn’t acknowledge Vermont’s annual Green Up Day.

“I wish he’d said, ‘Our neighbor to the east has made a tradition of greening up every year,’ but he didn’t,” she said.

Vermont’s annual event, a kind of statewide spring cleaning after the snow melts and reveals trash that has accumulated over the winter, may not be well-known outside of the state, but it is a staple for many local residents.

Green Up board member Suzy Roorda’s main priority this year, besides organizing New Haven’s event, was to get area school children involved. She helped put together a new Green Up story and drawing book available this year. On the left-hand page is a drawing by a Vermont child — one is a picture of children in a playground that says, “This is our playground and this is how we keep it clean.” — and on the right is a blank page, where children can draw their own clean play space.

“It’s all about awareness and learning to live the Green Up way every day,” Roorda said.

Three area students, Beeman Elementary School sixth-grader Danielle Norris and Neshobe School fourth-graders Sarah Young and Kirsten Werner, were county winners in this year’s Green Up poster contest. 

Shoreham organizer Heidi Lanpher is also focused on getting kids involved, and she’s armed with a stash of balloons, stickers, ice cream and even potted plants to make it happen.

She’s made sure that in Shoreham, Green Up isn’t a one-day event. Students at Shoreham Elementary School will take half of the school day on Friday to talk about Green Up and why it’s important to them. Then, together with their teachers, they’ll pick up trash around the school grounds and celebrate with an ice cream party.

“We’re trying to show them that if you throw just one piece of paper out, it makes a difference,” Lanpher said.

Starksboro organizer Marcia Perry has planned a similar event at Robinson School, though it will take place in the morning, so the principal has advised against any ice cream celebrations.

“He doesn’t want the kids to get all sugared up,” Perry said, with a smile.

But events are being planned for area adults, too. Otter Creek Brewing will host its annual Green Up Day cook-out at the brewery on Exchange Street in Middlebury on Saturday afternoon. Organizers there said “Green-uppers” can bring their bags full of litter to the brewery and drop them off in a dumpster provided by JR’s Rubbish in exchange for a free pint glass, and between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., a barbeque lunch.

Green Up Vermont President Melinda Vieux has steered the statewide organization for the last 11 years, raising money with the help of partner organizations like Ben and Jerry’s and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. The green trash bags distributed on Green Up Day cost $10,000 every year.

Vieux she has seen nothing comparable to Green Up Day.

“All the other states have adopt-a-highway programs,” she said. “But there’s no other state with a tradition that holds a candle to Vermont’s Green Up Day.”

Green Up Day is Saturday, May 5.

Find out what is going on in your town and join in. Local Green Up Day coordinators and their contact information are provided here.

ADDISON

• Starr Phillips/759-2421. Contact Phillips to receive bags and to coordinate coverage areas. When bags are full, drop them off in the town dump truck, which will be parked at Addison Four Corners all weekend long.

BRANDON

• Jim Leary/247-9595. Leary will be at the bandstand in Central Park from 8 to 10 a.m. Saturday to hand out doughnuts, coffee, hot chocolate, Green Up bags and road assignments. When participants are finished, they should bring their filled bags to the transfer station, if they can, or call Leary to let him know where they have left them by the side of the road. He encourages people to wear gloves.

BRIDPORT

• Susan Highley/758-2714. Participants can pick up bags between 9 a.m. and noon at the town clerk’s office. Contact Highley for more information.

BRISTOL

• Peter Diminico/453-3899 and Bruce Acciavatti/453-2076. Residents can pick up bags at a table set up on the town green at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. When they’ve finished greening up, they can leave their bags by the side of the road, where they will be picked up on the following Tuesday.

CORNWALL

• Vanessa Wolff/462-3138. Bags are waiting at the town hall, and Bingham Memorial School will also send some home with students next week. There will be a map at the town hall, on which people can mark off where they plan to work. Full bags can be dropped off at the truck in the town hall’s parking lot from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 5.

FERRISBURGH

• Deb Healy/475-2944. Green-up bags are now available at the town clerk’s office during business hours and on Saturday at the Ferrisburgh Central School parking lot from 9 to 10 a.m. If those hours are not convenient, call Healey to have bags delivered to your house. Full bags can be dropped off behind the town shed by Sunday evening, May 6. Call Healy if you drag bulky items out of a ditch but can’t bring them in and removal arrangements will be made.

GOSHEN

• Erica and David Sabatini/247-6350. Contact the Sabatinis for more information.

GRANVILLE

• Kathy Werner/767-4403. Participants can pick up bags at town clerk’s office and drop off their filled bags to the fire department.

HANCOCK

• Davey Domina/767-4490. Contact Domina for more information.

LEICESTER

• Kate Briggs/247-5305. Green Up bags will be available at the town shed/recycling center or by calling Briggs. Residents should bring filled Green Up bags to the town shed between 1 and 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 5. Each participant will receive a ticket good for a hot dog, soda and chips that afternoon, and each ticket will be entered into a raffle drawing for a $30 gift certificate to Cattails restaurant in Brandon.

LINCOLN

• Mary Apgar/453-3276. Residents can contact Apgar for bags or pick them up at the general store or the town clerk’s office. Filled bags should be dropped off at the fire station, where there will be a barbeque on May 5 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by a raffle drawing. To encourage people to join in, Apgar will also put envelopes along the roadside, which people can pick up and redeem for between $1 and $3, depending on the coupon inside.

MIDDLEBURY

• Peg Martin/388-7697. Bags are now available at the Middlebury town manager’s office. On Green Up Day, filled bags should be dropped off at the town trucks parked in East Middlebury behind the town gym and at the Rec Park skating rink.

MONKTON

• Janet Kimball/453-2675. Bags are available now at the town hall, where on the morning of Green Up Day volunteers will be giving them out from 8 a.m. to noon. A map is posted to keep track of which roads are taken and which still need to be done. People can drop off bags of trash at the town garage. If they see anything they can’t or shouldn’t pick up themselves, they should call the garage at 453-3263. The day will culminate with the annual spaghetti dinner from 5 to 7 p.m. at the school.

NEW HAVEN

• Suzy Roorda/453-5978. Residents should meet at the bandstand at 9 a.m. to register for roads and pick up bags, gloves and water. From noon to 2 p.m., participants can exchange their filled bags for hot dogs, while listening to a live performance of local music.

ORWELL

• Cindy Watrous/948-2751. Contact Watrous for more information.

PANTON

• Carol Kress/759-7777. Participants can pick up Green Up bags anytime this week and next at town hall or at the Panton Store. On Saturday, they should meet at 10 a.m. at the Panton Store to designate roads.

RIPTON

• Warren King/388-4082 and Steve Zwicky/388-2301. Bags are now available at the town office and the Ripton Store. Participants can drop off their filled bags at the town shed.

SALISBURY

• Holly Killary/352-6678. Residents may pick up bags and instructions at Kampersville Store on Lake Dunmore between 8 and 10 a.m. The town is still looking for volunteers with pick-up trucks to gather the filled bags from the roadsides and deliver them to the landfill during the afternoon. For more information, call Killary. Roadsides and pull-out areas around town are full of litter this spring; everyone’s help is needed to make the town beautiful again.

SHOREHAM

• Heidi Lanpher/897-2244. Bags are now available at the town clerk’s office and the library. Participants can drop off filled bags in the truck sitting outside of the firehouse anytime between 8 a.m. and noon. Anyone who brings back a full bag will receive a complementary plant — pansies or geraniums — balloons, stickers or ice cream. Also during that time, residents can drop off scrap metal at the firehouse at no charge.

STARKSBORO

• Marcia Perry/434-2462. Contact Perry to receive bags and sign up for roads. On Green Up Day, participants can drop off filled bags between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. at the town offices, town garage, Starksboro General Store or the Jerusalem Store. There will also be a dumpster at the town garage just for sheet metal. If they are greening up state highways, people can leave their filled bags by the side of the road.

VERGENNES

• Craig Miner/877-2469. Residents can pick up bags and rubber gloves between 7 and 9 a.m. on Green Up Day at City Park. If they want to sign up for a specific road ahead of time, or can’t make the scheduled time, participants should e-mail Miner at newminer1974@msn.com

WALTHAM

• Robert Popick/877-3323. Participants can pick up bags anytime next week on Popick’s porch at his home at 498 Route 66. Filled bags can be left by the side of the road and the town truck will pick them up.

WEYBRIDGE

• Megan Sutton/545-2475. People can pick up bags and sign up for a section of roads at the recycling center during its operating hours. When bags are filled, participants should leave them, along with anything they can’t bag, on the side of the road in a visible place. The town road crew will pick it all up on Monday, May 7.

WHITING

• Becky Bertrand/632-6325. Contact Bertrand for more information.