Spring Clean Is Coming Up

The city wide cleanup is set for Saturday May,16, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Flyers will be provided and the city's new events coordinator, Eve Doster-Knepp is in charge.

There is another meeting set for April 24th, 3:00pm at the 3rd floor conference room City Hall to give us an update.

The city is organizing the general setup: such as dumpsters, bags, shovels gloves, trucks sweepers etc. They are soliciting for sponsorships and donations.

There are 2 locations to meet and jump off from : The south side @ Peoples Community Center on Caniff and the north side @ Acts 29 on Caniff/Botsford.

The way i see it , the block club's role is to get more volunteers from the neighborhoods. We need to decide (in each area or block club) exactly what we want to do. That is , just pick up the trash in the front of the houses, clean up the alleys, remove graffiti etc.

I believe the key is to get the word out to our neighbors and secure volunteers. The more people we get out there the more we can accomplish and it is a powerful symbol to see neighbors working together.

Last year, on the north side, we had 50 volunteers participate from a church in Troy but maybe 10 people from Hamtramck. The previous year, it was similar. There were probably more volunteers from outside the city than citizens.

A general comment i hear about block clubs, is "i didn't know there was one." or "Where/when do you meet"

I think we need to do a better job of getting the word out and getting our neighbors involved. This is a good opportunity for us to increase block club participation.

Take care and I hope we can all make this event a success.

Tom Stackpoole