Cleanin Up Feels Good

My son Noel and I spent Saturday morning with seven other people working our buns off.

It felt good.

We were participating in the PA CleanWays effort to clean up some roadside dumps along Deep Hollow and Aires Hill roads in Cranberry Township.

PA Cleanways is a nonprofit agency that attacks the problem of illegal dumping and littering across the state through cleanup of sites, education and adoption of problem areas. It works through local chapters. Venango County’s chapter recently reactivated thanks to Erik Johnson who took on the role of county chair.

Johnson of Franklin works in the Venango County Planning Commission and is the county’s solid waste and recycling coordinator. I met him for the first time earlier in the week at a planning meeting.

Another member of the work crew that I knew was Susan Hileman. The new folks I met were Ray Fry, Brandy and James Rhinebolt, a young couple from Oil City, Susan Carmichael from PA CleanWays home office in Greensburg and Paul a Cranberry Township employee whose last name I did not get.

It was quite amazing how much our small group was able to accomplish and is testament to what local citizens can do when they work together.

Of course, examples of that are common in Venango-land. We see it often, and it is one of our strengths.

Conversely, there is something of a weird dichotomy that seems to make it difficult for us to work together as effectively as we could on a municipal or government level. To me, that is one of our weaknesses. At least that’s my take.