20 Volunteers, 1,800 Pounds of Junk

Saturday, May 17 was perhaps the best day of 2014 thus far for Shepherd Parkway.

More than twenty volunteers put in over 60 hours of work. Ten were participating for the first time, and 13 were Congress Heights residents, including DC Council Candidate Eugene Puryear, Matt Murray, Michael Sharp, Ron Stevens, Larry Williams, Michael Brockridge, Pax Johnson, George Oakley, John Gloster, Tristan Dewar, and Erick Whitaker.  

After a year of focusing on the area just south of Malcolm X Avenue and west of Brother Place, we returned to the woods along 2nd Street north of Malcolm X Avenue, where we removed tens of thousands of pounds of trash in 2011 and 2012.  

While littering along the street and the edge of the woods continues to be a problem, we were pleased to find very little new dumping in the year since we last cleaned that area.  Most of what we collected was simply missed before, including about 30 tires surrounded by intense brambles. Nathan sacrificed his body to get them out and emerged bloodied but satisfied with his accomplishment.

In total, we removed 57 tires, 50 large bags full of trash with an average weight of 20 pounds each, and another pile of assorted debris. The estimated one-day total weight of junk removed from the park: 1,800 pounds.

Sam Collins, a reporter for the Washington Informer attended the clean-up, took pictures and interviewed Nathan. His article should appear in print and online any day.