On a warm, sunny Sunday in early March, volunteers began assembling in Columbia’s Grasslands Park. By 1 p.m. over 60 people were lined up in front of the registration table where Cara Coates from Missouri Stream Teams and Anna Do, an AmeriCorps VISTA member from Missouri Conservation Corps helped volunteers get signed in. The festive and well-attended event was Missouri Conservation Corps’ first official creek cleanup in Columbia, held on Sunday, March 9th. The creek in question was Flat Branch Creek, and the portion selected for cleanup was between Bridge #1 and Bridge #3 on the MKT Trail. After signing in and receiving a brief safety talk from Cara and Anna, volunteers grabbed gloves and trash bags and began deploying in small groups along the impacted stretch of creek.
Eager to be outdoors in the sun after a long, dark Missouri winter, volunteers squeezed between bushes, scrambled down creek banks, and waded through the shallows in order to remove trash from this beautiful urban waterway. Within two hours our volunteers had collected and removed approximately 45 bags of trash, along with some oversize objects that were larger than our bags could accommodate. Some of these oversized items included tires, partially burned lumber, traffic cones, a warped piece of plywood, a metal trash can lid, a papasan chair frame, and a broken wooden crutch.
As volunteers hauled their bags of garbage back up to the park, the ever-resourceful Cara Coates grilled hot dogs for the entire crew. Volunteers enjoyed hot dogs and chips in the sunny warmth of the park while learning more about plastic pollution from MU School of Engineering researcher Maryam Salehi. We are very grateful to the many volunteers who came out to help us during this inaugural event, including members of the MU Women’s and Men’s Club Ultimate Frisbee, Delta Sigma Pi, Alpha Phi Omega, and Tigers for a Cause. We also had turnout from members of Missouri Master Naturalists, local Stream Teams, and from long-time Columbia residents and volunteers.
This creek cleanup was not only our first event dedicated to watershed health, but it was also our first collaboration with Missouri Stream Teams, and without their help and the assistance of Volunteer Columbia, we would not have been able to pull this off! Thank you everyone who came out to help!
