City encourages community clean-up for Earth Day

Medicine Hat – This Earth Day, Friday, April 22, the City of Medicine Hat is encouraging residents to get out and help beautify the community by cleaning up litter from around each neighbourhood.

“The Parks and Recreation Department normally hosts a litter blitz event on Earth Day, but last year, with COVID restrictions, we asked residents to help clean up their neighbourhoods and parks and saw a lot of success” said Jeff Quinlan, Parks Technician. “We want to build on that momentum and make Earth Day a weeklong event.”

To participate, residents, families and friends can use a garbage bag from home, or pick up supplies, including plastic gloves, to pick up litter and other garbage in Medicine Hat’s natural areas and coulees.

Supplies are now available for pick up at the Parks Office at 88 Kipling Street SE. Staff will also be handing out garbage bags and gloves at the Southeast Alberta Home & Leisure Show taking place April 22-24 at the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede grounds.

Staff with Parks and Recreation have also identified areas for anyone who may be interested in the community clean-up initiative. Volunteers are asked to complete the online form indicating which area they’ll be focused on, as well as how many people will be assisting.

“Earth Day is about promoting positive stewardship of the environment and encouraging actions that are beneficial to our community, for people and the wildlife,” Quinlan said. “If you are able to participate, please consider disposing of any garbage you collect in your garbage collection bins.”

Parks staff will remove any heavy or large items that are reported.

To encourage community spirit, staff will be running several contests where residents will be entered to win one of several hanging baskets and seed packets to plant this spring.

To enter, participants can complete the online form at www.medicinehat.ca/earthday and indicate which area of the city they are interested in cleaning up during the weeklong clean-up. In addition, residents are encouraged to take selfies with their Earth Day finds and submit them to the City of Medicine Hat’s Facebook page.

“We thought this would be a fun way to get people of all ages involved in the event,” Quinlan added. “We want to see how many bags you picked up, or maybe it’s the weirdest piece of trash you pick up. Anyone who submits a picture during the weeklong pick up will be entered to win.”

To wrap up the weeklong clean-up, a community BBQ will be held by staff at the Parks Office on Saturday, April 30. Coffee will be served beginning at 7:30 a.m. Participants are encouraged to bring their own reusable cup. Litter gathering supplies will be handed out to anyone who needs them. Transit will be able to shuttle volunteers between the park and locations throughout the city, bringing them back in time for lunch at 12 noon.

“We want to celebrate the hard work of our community and couldn’t think of a better way than to have everyone join us in Kin Coulee after the clean-up is complete,” Quinlan added.

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