By Lauren Parker- Gill, Staff Writer, The Times
COATESVILLE – More than 100 volunteers, including children, equipped with rakes, trash bags, shovels, mums and gallons of paint, donated their time to clean up local parks in Coatesville for the nation’s largest community service day, Make A Difference Day.
(L-R) Isabelle and Arrielle Zurita, Dr. Cathy Taschner, Janelle Pedroza, Lt. Audette and Michele and Keira Ollis worked together to plant beautiful fall mums at Ash Park. Photo courtesy of Coatesville Police Department.
Millions of volunteers across America participate in the initiative that was started in 1992 by USA TODAY and is held every year on the fourth Saturday of October. The Gannett Company and TEGNA INC sponsor this operation, in collaboration with Points of Light.
The Coatesville Youth Initiative organized Coatesville’s Make A Difference Day by planning the locations and coordinating all of the volunteers. Sponsors for the event included: The Point, Honeybrook Golf Club, The Coatesville Youth Initiative, designz, Heatherwood, YMCA, Shady Maple Farm Market, Paragon Business Gifts, Inc., the Coatesville Area Senior Center, the City of Coatesville, the Western Chester County Chamber of Commerce, Parkesburg Area Business Association, Honeybrook Community Partnership, Citadel and the Coatesville Police Department.
All volunteers checked in at the Gordon Building on Kersey Street at 8:30 a.m., where they received cleanup supplies and were served water and energy boosting foods such as bananas and granola bars. After posing for a group picture, the volunteers left for their assignments to one of three parks – Palmer Park, Ash Park and West End Park.
Kendra Wilson of Giving Girls Guidance (G3) puts the finishing touches on one of Palmer Park’s benches.
Cleanup at each of the parks included raking leaves, picking up trash and weeding and planting mums. Sergeant Rodger Ollis from the Coatesville Police Department participated in the cleanup of Ash Park by collecting several bags of trash with Coatesville residents 15 year old Arrielle Zurita and her sister Isabelle, 10.
“The parks are a beautiful part of nature and helping clean them up makes them look even nicer.” Zurita said.
Fall Mums were planted at each of the three parks after flowerbeds were weeded, prepped and mulched. Coatesville Area School District Superintendent Dr. Cathy Taschner participated by planting some of the flowers at Ash Park before visiting the other two parks to lend a helping hand.
In addition, all park benches and picnic tables received fresh coats of paint, as inspirational words, messages and sidewalk games were also painted along the paved paths at Ash Park.
Michele Ollis and several volunteers painted sidewalk games, letters, numbers and inspirational messages along the paved paths of Ash Park.
Make A Difference Day successfully ran from 8:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. and resulted in three clean, safe and beautiful parks for residents of Coatesville to visit and enjoy.
For more information about future local volunteer projects please visit:
http://coatesvilleyouthinitiative.org/
