09/21/2011
Just in case anyone missed the original article by Don Crinklaw:
The neighborhood clean up in South Middle River last Saturday started with production numbers. Around 9:30 a bagpipe band, all tams and kilts, marched through the yard of Thurgood Marshall Elementary School. On the southern edge of the yard, city worker Robin McIntosh fronted a blues band, her choir-trained voice wailing Aretha Franklin’s "Natural Woman."
The crowd gathered on that burnt-out grass had come to work. The school at the intersection of Northwest 13th Street and Northwest 9th Avenue was the staging area for the Rotary Club’s Power of One Hour. It was an attempt, as organizer Jorg Hruschka said, "to raise awareness of the need for help, and the impact one hour can make."
Hruschka, the Rotary Club’s community service officer, made sure that tables loaded with muffins, chilled water and urns of coffee were in place inside the gate. In front was a plastic bag filled with cloth work gloves, a box of Renown garbage bags and a stack of long-handled rakes.
"We’ve done everything to get the news out," Hruschka said as volunteers gathered at the sign-in desk. "We went from door to door, trying to get across what great resources are available to the community."
At 10:00 Charles Felix, secretary of the Rotarian Club, tooted an air horn and the volunteers, around 200 of them, dispersed. Crews were sent east and west on 13th Street. Most were concentrated on what Sal Gatanio, president of the neighborhood association, called "the infamous Northwest Eighth Avenue."
This is the strip of trashed lawns and boarded-up sale properties nobody wants. Clean it up on Saturday and it’s a mess again on Monday, "but we don’t give up," said former association president Robert Alcock. "Keep nurturing it. There are kids on this street and giving them hope is such a huge thing. Let them know they don’t have to tolerate bad stuff."
A half-hour later the morning sun was softened by a cool breeze, but the volunteers were sweating. Six Cub Scouts from Pack111 in Plantation picked up trash with long aluminum tubes called Reachers.
"It’s part of the Leave No Trace program," said pack leader Chris Torlone. "We clean up neighborhoods and visit nursing homes. The kids get awards."
Thirteen teenagers in bright red T-shirts moved up behind the scouts. This is the National Achievers Society, said parent board president Miriam Atkins. It’s a program of the Urban League, intended to encourage academic achievement among minority youth. "There are scholarship opportunities. The kids have to keep a 3.5 grade point average."
Inside the school cafeteria various professionals offered health and money advice. Attorney Inna Shapovalov of The Citizenship Clinic (888-928-7325) said that "we offer free consultations, on the phone if you can’t make it in."
"I’ve registered civic groups and suburban groups," Charles Felix said, the hour about up. "Professional landscapers came by, then a couple of fellows who own a mowing service, all volunteering to help.
"It’s hot out here but I’m good," Felix said. "And in a bit I get to blow the air horn again."
