Lents volunteers host ‘Neighborhood Cleanup’
Out of all Portland neighborhoods, find out how the Lents Neighborhood Association was able to host the only ‘bulky waste clean-up’ anywhere in the city, this year …
Published originally 19 October 2020 (link here) by
© 2020 David F. Ashton ~ East Portland News™
In outer East Portland, in a church parking long on Mt. Scott, volunteers help neighbors pitch refuse, too large for roll cans, into a drop box.
Story and photos by David F. Ashton
On October 3, volunteers with the Lents Neighborhood Association (LNA) – against all odds – held an astonishingly successful event: the only “Community Collection Event” held in the whole metropolitan area this year.
It took determination and pluck to pull it off – because, several years ago, METRO stopped providing vouchers for neighborhood bulky waste clean-up dumping disposal fees. And, this past July, the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services announced they were abandoning “Community Collection Events” altogether.
Neighbors across Portland mourned the loss of cleanups like these, in which neighborhood associations could sponsor large drop boxes where folks can dump – usually for a small donation – the larger refuse items that don’t fit in their roll carts.
“We needed to have this,” says cleanup organizer Jennifer Breedlove.
As impossible as it may have seemed, ten socially-distanced volunteers – all wearing face coverings and gloves – were busy in the Mt. Scott Church parking lot on Saturday morning, October 3rd, helping the neighbors arriving a seemingly never-ending stream of vehicles to dispose of their rubbish.
Credited for making this unlikely “Community Collection Event” happen was LNA Land Use Committee Chair Jennifer Breedlove.
“I took this on because, well, our Lents neighbors wanted and needed it,” Breedlove told East Portland News.
For further reading, you can find the original article link here.
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