On Earth Day, we organized the 1st Annual Exeter Earth Day Riverside Clean Up, or "Riverside Cleanup 2023" for short.
We had a dream goal of cleaning up trash along the riverside from behind the shop (or really, behind OBA), all the way to the far end of Swasey Parkway. That's about a mile of riverside, and since we put the cleanup together at kind of the last minute, we didn't think we'd accomplish it, but figured we'd try our best anyway.
It turned out that we had a good turnout - eight of you showed up, and that plus Mike and I were just the right amount to clean up the entire riverside from behind the shop all the way to Newfields Rd., including that tiny waterfall area at the far end. We filled a large amount of three trash bags, which was especially huge considering how much of the trash was cigarette butts.
Shout out to everyone who came down and cleaned up (and shout out to the people who loaned us trash grabbers). Thank you for helping, we appreciate you, and so do the river and all the creatures living in and on the river!
I was so happy to see everyone, I forgot to take a group pic, but luckily we caught the eye of our neighbor, and she snapped this pic of us.
Earth Day this year was on the Saturday that overlapped NH and MA school vacations, so many of you said you'd like to join in, but couldn't make it that day.
We'll be hosting the 2nd Annual Exeter Earth Day Riverside Clean Up in 2024, but you don't have to wait that long to join in! Keep an eye out for future smaller cleanups throughout the year. Cleaning up our riverside is just more fun when we do it together.
Xo,
Lisa