By BOBBIE GREEN
The Progress
The Rotary Club of Mesquite and friends of Rotary helped perform their first highway clean up on Saturday, Nov. 20. The club members, supplemented by a group of local volunteers, worked along the sides of their newly adopted stretch of Riverside Road, beginning at the Bunkerville Bridge and moving south.
The Club adopted this stretch of highway and has set a goal to do a quarterly clean up of this part of the highway over the next year.
The group was out in full force, dressed in the brightly colored state-provided vest with orange trash bags.
In addition to the Rotarians, a group of volunteers that have become known as “Friends of Rotary” also showed up to help. These included Layton and Kaci Woods, Tyler Kelly, Jason Abbott and Megan and Colton Teerlink as well as their families. The parents even brought their young children for a fun-filled time of hunting for trash along the highway to pick up – just like hidden Easter Eggs.
“Having their help we were able to clean up even beyond our assigned stretch of the highway covering both sides of the road,” said Rotary 5300 District Governor Keith Buchalter of Mesquite. “Doing this highway clean up is just one of the many ways Rotary gives back to the community.”
Rotary Club President Linda Gault said that the idea for the Adopt a Highway project came from local Rotarian Karen Fielding, who brought the proposal before the club membership.
“Karen suggested doing it and the club thought it was a good idea,” Gault said. “So she made the initial contact with NDOT to identify the stretch of highway and they got it approved for us to adopt it.”
Gault explained that the club has committed to doing three more cleanups on the same highway within the next year.
“So there will be opportunities to do it again,” she said. “And we always appreciate having members of the general public work with us in doing this kind of community service.”
