Now I can say I have done a litter pluck! Not exactly on my bucket list but it was fun and as it turned out an important thing to do. The litter pluck as a public event goes back to the 1950's as a revered community event.

Five years ago, when Queen Elizabeth turned 90 years old the people of England organized a litter pluck called “Clean for the Queen” and a half a million Britains hauled in 300,000 bags of trash to honor her birthday. Last Saturday The Greater Barryville Chamber of Commerce organized an Upper Delaware Litter Sweep to tidy up our beautiful Route 97 Scenic Byway around Barryville, so my friend Perry Shore and I joined in.

After some coffee and delicious homemade donuts and getting tricked out in our reflective vests and hard hats, and given gigantic trash bags, Perry and I went to our assignment which was to clean the roadways up around the Eagle Observatory with our team members Corrine O'Brien from State Senator Mike Martucci's Office and the wonderful Ari Mir- Pontier, the Outreach Director for Congressman Antonio Delgado.

Off we went for several hours picking up an incredible amount of roadside trash including a broken window and a rusted out folding chair. The litter pluck organizer, Johnny Pizzolato, asked us to go the Department of Transportation's Lumberland Parking Area to help there.

Driving we saw many volunteers cleaning up and neatly tied up bags waiting to be picked up. Well, I can say that as a tribe of people some of us are a messy and irresponsible lot. In addition to your usual roadside fare of food wrappers, cups, bottles, car parts and animal bones, the Parking Area yielded tires, furniture, construction debris and several mattresses.

And by the way not to get all Margaret Mead here but after having rooted around in the grass and streams of our roadways for several hours I did pick up many more vodka bottles and beer cans than coffee cups, water bottles and soda cans so there is another good reason to drive with care!

Johnny Pizzolato who is also the Chairman of the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway told me that the Byway organization is focused on rehabilitating the Parking Area to make it more functional and attractive and is working with the Sullivan County Legislature on a pilot waste management project to install solar powered trash bins that would incinerate any trash, so the cans do not ever have to be emptied-talk about an absolute gamechanger.

According to Roswell Hamrick, the President of the Greater Barryville Chamber of Commerce and sponsor of the litter pluck event, “we had an amazing turn-out for the Litter Sweep-over forty volunteers who picked up fifty bags of trash and multiple yards of household garbage including tires and mattresses. Thanks to those who participated and let's all make a conscious effort to keep our River Corridor clean throughout the year”.

I noticed a team of ten volunteers from the Burn Brae Mansion Bed and Breakfast and a team from Jeff Bank led by Andy Boyer, the former Supervisor for the Town of Highland. Certainly, the most audacious volunteer was Robert Walker from Barryville who repelled shirtless down the side of a cliff to remove three mattresses.

Congratulations to all the volunteers who participated and made it such a great day for our town and the environment and to the Barryville Chamber for another very successful community event.

Most of us know Candy Bott as a very talented painter or see her working at the Eldred Post Office. But Candy and her husband Steve are always involved in community fundraising events and at one recent event they donated a huge truckload of logs for a raffle.

I wondered how during this lockdown people were able to carry on with their charitable projects. Candy Bott decided to walk one hundred miles during the month of April as a fundraiser for the ALS Foundation, and she has been sharing her progress on Facebook. As of her last posting she has done eighty-three miles by using her treadmill and walking the roads every day.

Her fundraising goal is $1,000 and she is very close to her goal. I donated because this is a wonderful challenge, and her hundred-mile trek represents Candy walking from her house in Highland to Staten Island! Candy told me it's going great, and the only problem is she does not have any time left to paint.

If you would like to support Candy to reach her fundraising goal visit her Facebook page and donate to the crucial mission of ALS Foundation. Go Candy Go!