Bleachery falls.

The Earth Day Cleanup of Bleachery Woods Trail, held on Saturday, April 27, proved to be a successful collaboration between Amity Dubell of the East Greenwich Land Trust, Ethan Dowding of EG Boy Scout Troop 1, and Laura Dawson of the Family Service Club. The cleanup drew in over 50 volunteers and quickly filled up a large highway department truck with bags of trash, recyclable materials, and bulky items that had accumulated in the park from years of illegal dumping. Volunteers of all ages scoured the park’s woods, pond shoreline, and trails adjacent to Saint Patrick’s Cemetery for litter and also performed much needed trail maintenance. After the EG Highway department cleared aside many of the fallen trees from the trails, Ethan Dowding (who adopted Bleachery Woods as his Eagle Scout Project) and the Troop 1 Scouts were able to cut back overgrown vegetation and add more much needed trail markers.

The cleanup proved to be a true community effort not only by the large showing of volunteers, but also from the support of local businesses through donation of supplies and refreshments. The generous donations of pastries by Sarah at Felicia’s Coffee, pizza from Al at Cobblestone’s Kitchen, water from Chris at Trader Joe’s, and ice cream from Warren at Clementine’s Homemade Ice Cream provided the fuel for hard work and much needed refreshment for the volunteers. The trash bags, rakes, and forestry tools generously provided by Adam at Salk’s Ace Hardware and Marine as well as a new sign for the Land Trust from Joe and Lauren at Signarama in North Kingstown not only supported the success of this cleanup, but will go a long way toward supporting future cleanup efforts at all the EG Land Trust properties.