Stellar spring cleanup

The community showed up once again for The Eastern Door’s Annual Spring Cleanup, a green tradition now officially three decades old and counting.

“I was happy with how things went, with the community coming out to clean up, but also our staff basically taking the bull by the horns and making a difference, getting rid of a lot of junk that’s been accumulated over many, many years, and sometimes just in the last few months,” said Steve Bonspiel, editor/publisher of The Eastern Door, who chipped in around Diabo Road and Tekakwitha Island.

“It’s nice to see that people care. People are trying to make a difference,” he said.

Hosted alongside the Kahnawake Environment Protection Office (KEPO) and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) Waste Management department, The Eastern Door’s 30th Annual Spring Cleanup last Friday drew a host of community members, many of whom are familiar faces at the event.

“I choose to participate every year because I care for the land. She is very fragile as is,” said Patrick Cross.

This time around, Cross decided to clean up trash around the Catholic cemetery, where he found artificial flowers and flower baskets tossed into the trees, along with other large items.

“I wish people had more respect than to dump what at one time sat on a tombstone, only later to be discarded in the woods,” said Cross.

He used the biggest garbage bags he had, piling the trash high on the bed of his pickup truck and depositing it at the cemetery entrance - this year, community members were asked to put the garbage in bags at the side of the road to be picked up by Waste Management.

“I checked a day later - it was gone,” he said.

Besides individuals, staff from organizations like Kahnawake Collective Impact also showed up to pitch in and make a difference at locations around the community - there are more than a few areas, unfortunately, where a significant amount of garbage emerges from the spring melt.

Marina Gosselin. environmental projects coordinator for climate change at KEPO, said the Spring Cleanup is a significant event each year for the organization.

“I think for us, it’s just participating in a community event where we can help clean up the environment, really just to be a part of the community and help out,” Gosselin said.

Waste Management administrative assistant Sean Davidson helped out at the Waste Management tent at the cleanup headquarters in The Eastern Door’s parking lot, where folks could pick up gloves and bags for collecting garbage and recycling. Coffee and donuts were also on offer at headquarters.

“It’s just to try to encourage good behaviour, good habits for the community, get people out there, see with their eyes what’s actually laying about and trying to keep everything clean,” Davidson said. “Especially if you look at the island there, it’s basically a dump, there’s stuff everywhere. We’re trying to teach everybody in the community just better habits overall.”

Bonspiel encouraged others to host cleanups in the community, noting that even multiple cleanups per month in Kahnawake would not be too much, given how much work there is to do.

“It’s important because it shows the future generations that we’re trying,” Bonspiel said. “We’re doing our part to try to keep things clean and make it better for our kids in the future. Ultimately, I think we all play a role. We’re doing what we can, but we need a lot of help.”

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