May 4th, 2008 was a chilly but sunny spring day. That was not a usual morning for a group of dedicated people who came out for a very good cause. Wearing white t-shirts with a colourful logo (made by Entripy Custom Clothing), and with great spirit, these people put on gloves and filled up garbage bags to make the Bathurst-Finch community a cleaner place to live!

These people were local residents who participated in the Spring Clean-Up organized by Action for Neighbourhood Change (ANC) in Bathurst-Finch. Together, we proved that ANC is a project that not only talks about changing the neighbourhood, but actually takes action to achieve its goals!

Many people contributed to the success of this clean-up, including:

· the new ANC Events Committee. This committee planned all the details of the event. Committee members are Amy Proulx, Timea Papp, Noel Dizon, Violeta Miraka, Nirmala Ramlalsingh, Leonid Predein and myself.

· members of the Filipino Seventh Day Adventist Church. They came out in large numbers and picked up garbage all the way from Sheppard Ave. to Antibes Community Centre. What a great effort!

· Antibes C.C. staff, who provided supplies, equipment and space. Benoit Tardif, Youth Outreach Worker, recruited many youth participants for the clean-up.

· ANC’s community animators, Cleo Bangsoy, Margarita Holets, Gladvin Murphy Thyagaraj and Satya Archana Evena, who helped promote the event and did other important jobs.

About 90 community members participated in the clean-up and collected over 15 huge bags of garbage! Along with paper, newspapers, plastic bags, containers, and cigarette butts, garbage included hazardous waste such as paint and chemical bottles. It is sad when people do not properly dispose of hazardous waste. Car parts and clothing items, such as socks and even shoes, were also found. Finding a shoe caused laughter, as participants wondered how a person can actually manage to lose a shoe!

After all the hard work had been completed, participants were rewarded with a BBQ at the Antibes Community Centre. Everyone had worked up a great appetite and the BBQ was a great success with no leftovers! Cleo Bangsoy, community animator at ANC, is the person to thank for organizing and running the BBQ.

I have written this article to bring the community’s attention to a very useful event, as well as to emphasize the importance of disposing of litter properly. Most of us do not litter in our homes, so why do it outside? Let us all try to keep our streets clean, so we can enjoy living in our green neighbourhood!

 By Svetlana Grodzevich