By Lauren Young
Staff Writer
Over 30 volunteers collected four tons of litter throughout DeWitt last Saturday during the town-wide clean-up initiative sponsored by the DeWitt Advisory Conservation Commission.
Volunteers included high school students, individual citizens, and many participants from the Holy Cross Church, the Jamesville-DeWitt modified boys’ lacrosse team and Cub Scouts Pack 165. Individuals and groups were assigned to various cleaning locations between the DeWitt Town Hall on Butternut Drive and Robbie T’s Pizza on North Street in Jamesville.
Dennis Payne, the Chair of the (DACC), called their clean-up initiative “aggressive,” citing the large amount of trash removed from the community.
“We always ask everyone what they found,” said Payne’s wife Sue. One particular family, the VanBurens, found a mailbox on the side of the road, and last week they found several beer bottles and whiskey flasks. “Hopefully, with the kids picking the stuff up, it now registers with them not to toss,” said Payne.
“I always think there’s more that I can do personally to create a society where we don’t have as much trash,” said volunteer Mary Banac, who has been a reoccurring volunteer for the cleanup since its conception in 1996.
When Banac was working on Route 173 in the morning near a farm, she discovered a piece of plastic that was causing a dam to form along a ditch.
“If someone hadn’t picked that up, the backflow of the water could have flooded his field,” she said.
Pack 156 Cub Scout Zack Cottrell, age 7, has been volunteering for the town for four years — nearly half his life. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” said Cottrell, who was accompanied by his father, Brian, and over 20 of his fellow scouts. The pack participates every year, and as a third grader, this is Cottrell’s fourth year.
“I love nature,” he said. Though they found mostly cigarettes and beer bottles, Cottrell’s find of the day was a baseball bat, which he plans on reusing for Syracuse Challenger Baseball, another group Cottrell is passionate about.
“It’s one of the three R’s – reduce, reuse and recycle,” he said. “All that trash makes pollution, and people hate that. Animals are going to eat that pollution, and that’s bad for them.”
“We each got a baseball,” said Will Hougland, another scout of Pack 156. “We went to a field and there were tons of baseballs.”
While Will and Zack made return appearances this year, it was a first-time experience for Will’s sister Kaitlin.
“It was pretty cool,” she said. Her favorite part, of course, was the free pizza afterwards. And for many volunteers, Robbie T’s is the main attraction.
“That’s the draw in Jamesville,” said Dennis Payne.
“He’s incredible,” Sue Payne said about Robbie Thompson, the owner of the restaurant. “He’s a fantastic community person. This place is a lot more than just a restaurant or pizza place.”
“Robbie’s our number one citizen,” added Mary Banac.
Thompson has been providing free pizza for volunteers of the clean-up initiative since the beginning, and continues to do so with a friendly smile on his face.
“I just love it every year,” said Thompson pulling another fresh cheese pizza pie out of the oven. “I love participating and seeing everyone year after year; it’s always awesome.”
Every year, in addition to free pizza provided by Robbie T’s, the clean-up initiative receives a $100 donation from Wegmans to purchase bagels, donuts, coffee and juice for their morning volunteers.
The next DeWitt clean-up is scheduled for this upcoming fall.
