What started as a community project after frustrations over garbage and trash at the dam area in Dell Rapids has led to an annual event. The “4th Annual River Cleanup Day” was held on Saturday, May 22nd
Kiley Stone organized the annual event in 2018 and has asked the community to join in the cleanup day to keep the local parks of Dell Rapids clean over the last four years. This year’s event brought 10 volunteers to help clean up different areas around the river.
“This year I went to look at the areas along the river that needed cleanup the most. To my delight, the area by the dam that we’ve done every year since starting was almost completely litter free. Most of this is due to the construction of the bike path, but it still shows that the yearly cleanup seems to be working!” said Stone. “We decided to expand to different areas, so we started at the tail end of the Rock Run stream and headed south. We covered the areas along the bike path starting at the 115 bridge all the way over to the pedestrian bridge. Again, there was not a lot of trash to be found until we ended up at the trail that cuts down along the river from the pedestrian bridge west to the highway. We came across a huge tarp that has been there for years. A few of the volunteers worked on removing that for quite some time.”
Stone also issued a huge thank you to everyone that volunteered and helped spread the word!
