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Volunteers clean up along Youngstown roadways
By Bob Jackson
YOUNGSTOWN
Moms know all about cleaning, said Karen Humphries of Youngstown. After all, they certainly do enough of it every day.
So when someone does the cleaning for them, well, that’s just pretty darn special.
That’s why Humphries was among nearly 50 volunteers who showed up Saturday morning to help clean litter from along busy state roadways in the city. The project was spearheaded by Green Youngstown and the Mahoning County Green Team in conjunction with the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Humphries teamed with Shelly Jadloski of Niles, and Jadloski’s daughter, Cheyenne Harris, to pick up trash along the Mahoning Avenue entrance ramp onto I-680. Humphries and Jadloski also work together in the Finance Department at Youngstown City Hall.
“I live in this area, so I wanted to help take care of it,” said Humphries. “Plus, it’s Mother’s Day weekend, so I thought the best thing to do was to clean up for Mother Nature since she can’t do it herself.”
Humphries said she’s participated in similar cleanups before, and the item she most often finds discarded along the roads is empty cigarette cartons.
“Lots and lots and lots of them, and lots of cigarette butts,” she said.
That held true Saturday, although Humphries said she also was finding a lot of empty prescription pill bottles along the road.
“That’s a new one,” she said. “I hadn’t seen that before.”
She’s also found lots of discarded scratch-off lottery tickets, and once found a woman’s wallet.
“You never know what you’re going to find out here,” she said.
Cheyenne, an eighth-grader at McDonald High School, said she came out because she’d missed school Wednesday when her classmates did a cleanup project in McDonald. She originally was assigned to write an essay about litter control, but Jadloski persuaded school officials to let her substitute Saturday’s cleanup instead.
“So this is her make-up day,” Jadloski said. She and her daughter had picked up several empty beer bottles and cans during their first hour of cleanup.
“There must be a lot of stupid people out drinking and driving,” she said as she wiped sweat from her face.
Audra Egan, safety and health inspector with ODOT District 4, cautioned the volunteers to be aware of traffic while they were working, and told them to not pick up any weapons, such as guns and knives, they might happen across.
“That’s actually very common,” Egan said, noting that volunteers are instructed to notify their ODOT team member if they discover anything like that. ODOT in turn notifies the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which recovers the weapon and treats the site as a possible crime scene, Egan said.
Humphries and Jadloski said, thankfully, they’d never found anything like that in their previous cleanup efforts.
Jennifer Jones, program coordinator for Green Youngstown, said 11 sites were chosen for Saturday’s effort. They focused on freeway entrance ramps with high-traffic areas coming into the city. Most were based on the amount of litter that historically has collected there, but some were specifically requested by volunteers who wanted to clean up areas near where they live.
All of the sites were considered major corridors of entry into the city, Jones said.
Shaleen McRae of Youngstown led a team of 10 people who chose to clean an area near the intersection of Albert and Verona streets on the East Side.
McRae, a member of the Northeast Homeowners Association, said the group conducts similar cleanup projects every other Saturday, primarily on the East Side.
“Honestly, I do it for my kids,” McRae said. “I tell them that this is our home, so we might as well keep it clean and beautiful.”
A mother of three boys and one girl, McRae said she’s expecting a fourth son in about two weeks, but that didn’t deter her from hitting the streets to pick up litter.
“The trash does not stop,” she said, laughing.
Day-reporting inmates from the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department also participated in the cleanup.
ODOT crew members went with each cleanup team and marked the areas with warning signs to ensure visibility and safety.
“We want to make sure no one gets hurt on the state right-of-ways while they’re picking up litter,” said Ronald J. Sharpe, ODOT District 4 transportation manager. He said the ODOT team members also pitched in with the cleanup.