Volunteers make a ‘clean sweep’ of Main Street

Winchester’s Main Street looks clean­er this week after 23 vol­un­teers spent an hour and a half last Wednesday pick­ing up lit­ter from Hickman Street north to the rail­road tracks.

“This is such a beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty, and we just want­ed to be part of help­ing to clean it and, you know, spread love around Earth Day,” said Abbye Crowe of New Vista, a non­prof­it men­tal health and sub­stance abuse clin­ic in Winchester.

Dana Royse, pres­i­dent and CEO of New Vista, said this was her first year of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cleanup, but the orga­ni­za­tion has been doing it for years.

“We’re just here to sup­port our com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

Shanda Cecil said this was the 13^th year for the Main Street Clean Sweep in Winchester, which the city gov­ern­ment spon­sors along with Bluegrass Greensource, an envi­ron­men­tal nonprofit.

“We are just work­ing to pick up lit­ter the has accu­mu­lat­ed over the win­ter and cel­e­brate Earth Day in the process,” she said. “This idea is that if you pick up lit­ter here in Winchester, it doesn’t get washed into the storm drains and from the storm drains into our rivers and even­tu­al­ly into the Gulf of Mexico.”

Among this year’s vol­un­teers were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Sekisui, a major peren­ni­al sup­port­er; New Vista; the Colleys, led by Julia Early; and the Boyken fam­i­ly, which runs Creative Coffees Roastery.

The event is held in Winchester on April 22 because that is Chelsea Boyken’s birth­day, and her fam­i­ly comes to sup­port her. Boyken, who now works for Bluegrass Greensource, has been tak­ing part in the cleanup for about eight or nine years. Her hus­band, Seth Boyken, said he’s also par­tic­i­pat­ing because he loves Main Street.

“I’m rep­re­sent­ing the future of this place,” he said. “I want things to pros­per, and I want to make a dif­fer­ence in the long haul.”

Bluegrass Greensource, for­mer­ly Bluegrass PRIDE, pro­vides envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion and resources for a 20-coun­ty area of Central Kentucky.

This year, it has 15 cleanups hap­pen­ing dur­ing Earth Week, through April 26.

By the end of the Winchester cleanup, vol­un­teers had col­lect­ed 18 bags of trash.