In the spirit of Earth Day, about 100 residents in the town of DeWitt got together last weekend to participate in a spring litter cleanup. The Saturday, April 25, event was made possible by the DeWitt Advisory Conservation Commission (DACC), who holds annual spring and fall cleanups in the town. z

“I think as people drive up and down the roads, they see trash and other debris along the side of it that people just throw out without thinking,” said Dennis Payne, an organizer of the event. “But it’s so convenient and inexpensive to take things to OCCRA or find local places that will take electronics.”

Last October was the first time DACC brought together the communities of DeWitt, Jamesville and East Syracuse in a unified cleanup effort. Before that, the individual communities held their own cleanups throughout the year.

This spring, a total of about 100 residents in all three communities gathered at different locations around the town of DeWitt, including the DeWitt Town Hall on Butternut Drive, Robbie T’s Pizza in Jamesville and the Village Deli in East Syracuse.

Participants worked from 9 a.m. to noon and helped clean litter and disposed items in various parts of the town.

One large group that contributed to the cleanup were the nearly 30 students-athletes from the Jamesville-DeWitt modified boys lacrosse team, and about 10 parents and coaches who brought them.

A group of lacrosse players, who cleaned in the Fiddler’s Green Park area in Jamesville, said they found a wide variety of disposed objects, including bottles, TV’s, tires, a sink, a toilet and a Mrs. Potato Head doll.

Payne said many of these objects were probably found because litter intended to go to the OCCRA facility located in Jamesville may have fallen off a truck transporting it, and also that the Fidler’s Green area had become a dumping ground for people over the years.

Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for the Eagle Bulletin. She can be reached at [email protected].