By Gary Meyer

It may have been early, but by 7:30 a.m. Saturday, May 5 an outpouring of 190 people arrived to sign up for the community clean-up stretching from the Interstate 5 to the Mil Potrero ‘Y.’ They answered with a resounding “Yes!” to the challenge posed in The Mountain Enterprise last week by Steve Newman: ‘Have we got what it takes?’

Newman, of the Mountain Communities Municipal Advisory Council, was fretting about whether more than 80 people would join in the effort. But families, clubs and individuals poured into the Frazier Mountain Park Community Center Saturday morning. They signed in, nibbled on muffins, were issued vests, tools, litter bags and assignments.

It took only three to four hours to spruce up the community. Newman and the MCMAC launched the bold idea last October to see if enough people could be assembled to clean up and collect 12,000 pounds of trash and bulky waste items. Bulky items were collected with the help of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Lebec Community Church cleaned up the shooting range in Frazier Park, removing at least three pickup trucks of junk, Chuck Noble reports.

Newman spoke with Kern County Waste Management and arranged prizes from Walmart and the AT&T Store in Santa Clarita (for a 55-inch wide screen television and an Apple 3G iPad). Families were out on the roadside showing their six-year-olds what it means to participate and give back to their community. The only problem seemed to be keeping the volunteers supplied quickly enough with trash bags. Newman estimates that 300 bags of trash were hauled away to the transfer site in Lebec.

This is part of the May 11, 2012 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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