Hopewell youth leading 4th river clean up soon!

The Hopewell youth are stepping up to the plate and they are hitting home run after home run with environmental service and beautification projects!

On March 5th, we began with a neighborhood ravine clean-up project. The entire community came together (including three city councilors), picking up over 750 pounds of trash in a ravine that drains into the lower Appomattox River.

On March 26th, FOLAR conducted their regional river clean up where the Hopewell youth had a strong presence exerting a tremendous amount of energy to clean up our wonderful city and beautiful river!

On both April 2nd and 3rd, Hopewell youth came out to pick up trash around the Marina, Riverside Park, and the nearby ravine. Roughly six bags of trash were collected and two tires were pulled from the ravine!

Now Saturday, April 16th from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m we are asking everyone to please come out for another neighborhood and river clean up! We will be tackling the Bluffs near Weston Manor! We have plenty of bags and gloves for volunteers to use.

Over the course of the past year and a half, we have heard neighbors, friends, and Hopewell outsiders talk about the trash in our streets and river. With your help, we can put a stop to this “trash talk” and remedy the “trash” look, making our town and river cleaner, more pristine, and a sparkling diamond not only for future economic development, but also for our own personal enjoyment! By gathering up the trash, we are making the city a cleaner place to live, a more appealing place to do business, and an enjoyable location for tourists to come and visit.

At our current work rate, we are forecasting to remove well over 2000 pounds of trash from the river, ravines, stormwater culverts, and streets. Come out and let’s all work together to clean up our neighborhood, river, and city!

If you have any questions or would like to participate, please contact Johnny Partin at partinjb@gmail.com or 804-909-2492.

Together we can and we will make Hopewell more beautiful!

Johnny Partin is a board member of Friends of the Lower Appomattox River and vice chairman for Keep Hopewell Beautiful. John Eliades is a student at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School and a member of Keep Hopewell Beautiful and the Friends of the Lower Appomattox River.