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Converted from paper version of the Broad Ripple Gazette (v04n08)
Tammy's Take - By Tammy Leiber
posted: Apr. 20, 2007

Tammy's Take header

It's April, time for Earth Day and cleanups all over the city that hopefully will have your neck of the 'hood looking spiffier and ready for spring.
If you've ever participated in a cleanup, you know what you're in for-a Saturday morning of manual labor and smelliness, perhaps followed by some donated pizza or a neighborhood pitch-in lunch.
Until quite recently, I never realized what it takes to organize one of these cleanups. Resources are available, but figuring out the who/what/when/where should come with a guidebook and a personal assistant.
First, there's the trash bin. Formerly, the city of Indianapolis would send a packer truck out to neighborhoods for alley cleanups. Now, however, you likely get a trash bin. If you participate in a cleanup with a garbage truck, consider yourself very lucky.
You'll need to schedule the drop-off and pickup of a 40-yard trash bin with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful Inc., the not-for-profit that works with the city and neighborhoods on a multitude of worthy projects. There's a great demand, as it turns out, for bins-call now, for instance, to reserve a bin for mid-June.
Got a bin? Great. Where are you going to put it? Someone's backyard? A local business' parking lot? Start calling around for permission to park a 40-cubic-yard bin on someone's property for a couple of days.
Now comes the task of finding able and willing bodies to fill the bin with litter and debris. Perhaps you already have a cadre of neighbors who always turn out for cleanups. Perfect. Design, print and distribute flyers to let them know, or get on the horn and call them all.
Don't forget, while you're at it, to amass wheelbarrows, pickup trucks, etc., to get the trash to the bin.
If your neighborhood seems to have more litterbugs than helping hands, the city is willing to send out a crew of probationers who will help with the cleanup as part of their court-ordered community service. Arranging that requires a call to a second person at KIBI. You also can get rakes, shovels and other tools. Call a third contact, this one at Health and Hospital Corp., to have those dropped off and picked up.
Whew. Did you forget anything? Oh yeah, what are you going to feed your hungry, dirty volunteers after they've helped make the world a nicer place, and where are you going to feed them?
Of course, you're probably squeezing in all these calls around work and deadlines and client crises and dogs that need walking or kids who need feeding.
The whole experience of arranging a cleanup has made me admire even more the People Who Get Things Done. Every great neighborhood has at least one-the person who organizes meetings and cleanups, disseminates information, and holds the city and others accountable by being the persistent squeaky wheel when there's a problem. They do this purely as volunteers, their only reward a nicer neighborhood.
In this case, my alley cleanup never would have happened (as of this writing, I'm being optimistic and assuming it will) without the assistance of Waldine Anderson, who shepherded me through the process. Waldine is what I've always called a force to be reckoned with. Anyone who lives in her part of southeast Meridian Kessler has her to thank for a cleaner, safer, more attractive neighborhood. She's inspired countless others like myself to play a bigger part in shaping their neighborhood to be a place we can be proud of. Last year she won a much-deserved Mayor's Community Service Award, but she should be thanked more often.
Around Indianapolis, there are a lot of other People Who Get Things Done, but suffice it to say, I have a new appreciation for how much time and effort it takes to be one of those people. Waldine's been at this so long, she has things like cleanups running as part of a well-oiled machine, but getting started was, I'm sure, at least as hard, if not harder, for her as it was for me-I have great resources like her and Caroline Farrar at Meridian-Kessler Neighborhood Association to help me.
So this Spring, be sure to thank your neighborhood's force to be reckoned with. Even better, help out him or her by being the squeaky wheel about that pothole in the street, or by helping pass out fliers, or even, if you dare, by organizing a cleanup.



Tammy Lieber is a freelance writer who lives in Meridian Kessler, otherwise known as SoBro. A former reporter at the Indianapolis Business Journal, she now writes journalism and marketing pieces when she's not fixing up her house or enjoying the company of friends over a pint of Guinness. Her favorite spectator sport is politics, except on Sundays during football season. Email her at tammy@broadripplegazette.com




tammy@broadripplegazette.com
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