MOUNT VERNON — Last summer’s West End Community Cleanup Day was a variation of the adage “see something, say something.”
In this case, it was “see something, do something.”
In 2022, the Area Development Foundation asked Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s honors program students to assess Mount Vernon’s West End neighborhood. It was the third study the ADF conducted.
The students noted several problems, including a lack of property maintenance, street lights, and curbs.
“A lot could be done to make the community beautiful,” honors student Judy Bennett said at the time.
History major Chase Brown helped with the assessment.
“After the original research project, we had a lot of abstract ideas what the community could use. In the second semester, we really wanted to get out in the community and do something tangible,” the senior explained to Knox Pages in January.
ADF Vice President Sam Filkins presented ideas, including a community cleanup day.
“This was where they gravitated,” Honors Professor Brett Wiley said.
Cleanup Day logistics
Senior pastoral ministry major Benjamin Slater reached out to Rumpke for help. Rumpke provided four dumpsters.
The students’ original idea was an Arch Park location, but the group moved the event to the kayak access in Riverside Park for more space and easier turnarounds.
Junior psychology major Emily Ludwig recruited honors students to work on publicity. They sent out info via posters, advertising, and social media.
“We were just trying to get the word out there so we could get as many people as possible,” she said.
Wiley met with city officials to hear their concerns. A major concern was how to control overflow and early or late dumping.
In addition to residents dropping off items, the students provided pick-up service for residents who had mobility issues.
“We had 15 scheduled pickups,” Slater said.
Too successful?
The students scheduled Cleanup Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. People started arriving at 9:45 a.m.
Initially concerned about low visibility, the students agreed the Riverside location “turned out to be plenty visible.”
“We filled four dumpsters in one hour and 15 minutes,” Professor Wiley said. “We had to call people and tell them we couldn’t come and pick up their stuff, and we had to turn people away.
“But 95% of the people were OK with it.”
“We didn’t have enough room,” Brown agreed. “We had to tell people with loaded-down pickups and tied-down mattresses that we don’t have room for your trash. We closed one dumpster early because we knew we had [scheduled pick-up] loads coming in.
“But it was a testament to how well it worked,” he added.
Rumpke delivered the dumpsters on Friday and planned to pick them up the following Monday. However, the pickup got delayed until Wednesday.
“People did dump additional things and leave some trash, but not a lot,” Wiley said. “To their credit, when Rumpke picked up the dumpsters, they did clean up.”
Lessons learned
Students agreed in a debriefing afterward that doing something the first time always brings problems.
“But knowing that it was that important to the community showed us this is something we should do again,” Ludwig said.
Brown cited one couple who dropped off a couch. They told the students they had no idea how to dispose of it so they could renovate their basement.
“Having gone through it, knowing the people who utilized the service … That’s not the way we anticipated it being utilized, but it was an added benefit. Now we have that insight going into it,” he said.
Slater said Cleanup Day is a definite need.
“It’s a constant need. Trash just doesn’t go away,” he said, adding that people are constantly renovating homes or buying new mattresses.
Brown said that “everyday trash” is covered through other programs but noted that many community members don’t have the extra funds to pay for disposing of large trash items.
Looking forward, Ludwig said a quarterly event is too much. She suggested either an annual event with more dumpsters or a bi-annual event with the four dumpsters.
She also noted the Mount Vernon Police Department held a Drug Take-Back Day before Community Cleanup Day.
“In the future, it might be good to have them together,” she said.
The students also suggested accepting clothing to donate to thrift stores.
“Really, it would be an all-in-one clean-out-your-house day,” Slater said.
“I think if we had that, people would definitely utilize it,” Ludwig added.
“It’s not just helping people with their trash, but doing something after the fact,” Brown said.
Is a Cleanup Day partnership possible?
The ADF’s Filkins agreed the city needs an outlet for residents to dispose of large trash items.
“There’s not really an easy way for folks to get ride of these things, and it just piles up,” he said. “By having this kind of day, and especially with the students going to pick up items, that removes the obstacles that folks have to remove these things.”
Filkins would like to see a same-day event in all four city quadrants.
“But that will take a lot of effort, so we’ll focus on neighborhoods for now,” he said. “By making it in the neighborhood, we think it would be a bigger impact.”
The city has a program that helps residents pay for taking items to Rumpke. However, participation has dwindled over the past few years.
The students would love to partner with the city on future cleanup events. Ludwig said if the city could help underwrite the cost, Rumpke would not have to donate the total cost of the dumpsters.
Slater said using city vehicles would be helpful to get done quicker, and Brown suggested police officers or someone to monitor the site would increase safety.
“To put a 19-year-old college student in charge of monitoring something like that is probably not the best thing,” Brown said.
Slater said the whole event is pretty straightforward.
“It’s just having the desire to make it happen,” he said, adding that MVNU students are willing to get involved.
“How can we actively put our faith to work in the world. I think there are a lot of ways we can do that. There are people on campus who would love to serve and don’t know how. There’s no shortage of students who would love to take part in this.”