Earth Day is held annually on April 22. The day was created in 1970 by a U.S. senator as a way to force the issue of ecological awareness and a clean environment onto the national agenda. 48 years later, Earth Day has grown to become one of the largest civic gathering events in the world, with over a billion yearly participants.

This year, the city of Syracuse is hosting “Clean up ‘Cuse,” a litter cleanup event in partnership with the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency to coincide with Earth Day. The events will be held on Friday and Saturday.

Organizations participating in the event include Central New York Humanists, The Northeast Hawley Development Association and the Downtown Committee of Syracuse. Each of these organizations have a specific zone in the city they’re cleaning up. The event is the community’s largest environmental effort, according to OCCRA. More than 6,800 people participated last year, collecting more than 73,000 pounds of litter.

Hiba Attia is the community engagement coordinator for NEHDA, a nonprofit community development agency founded in 1974 that is committed to revitalizing and stabilizing the northeast sector of Syracuse. She said the organization started off with one neighborhood in 2014. This year, NEHDA is cleaning up four areas: the North Salina Street corridor, the Hawley-Green triangle, the area around Dr. Weeks Elementary School and the Rose Hill Cemetery, she said.

Attia is also the community engagement coordinator for the Syracuse Northeast Community Center, which is partnering with NEHDA to clean up the city’s Northside neighborhoods. She said the event is important because it fosters a sense of community and encourages people to make improvements to the area.

“It’s for all of us to aim together at making this community a better place — for all of us (to work hand in hand) in order to keep Syracuse clean, keep our Northside clean,” Attia said. “That’s very important and wouldn’t be done without our volunteers.”

NEHDA alone gets about a hundred volunteers every year, Attia said, and the numbers have been gradually increasing. She hopes there will be a bigger turnout this year. Last year, NEHDA partnered with Northside Urban Partnership, and this year, she hopes the growing enthusiasm to keep the city clean would lead to more volunteers.

The Downtown Committee of Syracuse event will start their cleanup on Clinton and Adams streets at 8:30 a.m. and end at Downtown East at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. Gloves and trash bags will be provided to volunteers, and lunch will be served after. Last year, they had a record 402 volunteers according to a press release.

Central New York Humanists have also planned an event on Saturday from 9 to 11 a.m. and their area of focus will be Lewis Park, in the Westside neighborhood of the city.

“We’d like to see our Northside clean and the way that we make it clean is to be that change,” Attia said. “To go out there that day and clean up the Northside and do it together.”

Published on April 18, 2018 at 9:44 pm

Contact Jony: ktsampah@syr.edu