u/elbancoescerrado

Friday was the annual Kalamazoo United Day of Service.

KUDOS is a volunteer weatherization project aimed at helping to prepare the homes of people who face economic hardship for the harsh winter season thats ahead.

This year ten teams worked to serve thirty homes! I am still in awe at how well planned and organized this event was. Shout out to the events director, Christina Dorett, who did such a great job coordinating it. This event had a lot of moving parts, and it all came together perfectly.

I'm very thankful to have been able to lend a hand at KUDOS and I can't wait to be there for it again next year!

Saturday was Krazy for the Kzoo, a volunteer cleanup event organized by the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council with support from other local groups.

Twenty four volunteers split up into three teams and worked at different sites to pickup over a ton of garbage!

Volunteers used waders to cleanup in Portage Creek, and pulled out so much waterlogged trash and scrap metal. Working in deep water with a current flowing around you, and pulling bicycles and weed eaters out of the mud under water is no small task, and it takes a specific type of hardy volunteer to accomplish it.

A short distance away, other volunteers cleared the garbage off the shoreline of the Kalamazoo River at the Jack Coombs Trailway. This area gets littered almost every day, and several areas of the trail spill garbage directly into the Kalamazoo River. This preventative trash picking of the garbage on the shoreline is critical to keeping it all out of the river, where it becomes even more hazardous to the environment.

Upstream just a ways a third team picked away at the Trash Pit Of Despair. This group was comprised nearly completely of employees from Jones and Henry Engineers LTD. I am blown away by the level of dogged determination they showed. This area is pretty intense (thus the name) and they never once wavered. They followed some crazy trash pickin guy down a deer trail to a trash Pit and got right to work in there. To say I was impressed with them would be a massive understatement.

All of this hard work was done safely and without any incident 😊

Shoutout to my friend Bela Ballez, Executive Director at the KRWC for organizing this project. Her hard work and thoughtful planning shows in the great results of the day.

I'm honored to have been a part of it.

It was a cleanup event that all of us will no doubt remember for the rest of our lives 🙌

Ian 🗑 ❤️

Hey everyone!

To end our fair weather trash picking season, TLK has a weekend full of trash cleanup / community service opportunities for you!!

First, we kick things off on Friday with the Kalamazoo United Day of Service (KUDOS)

This is a weatherization project project aimed at helping to prepare homes in our community for the harsh winter season thats ahead.

The event is scheduled for Friday Oct 2nd starting at 8:30AM at Allen Chapel on North St.

KUDOS wraps up at 12:30pm, and ends with a community lunch so please join in and lend a hand, and stick around afterwards to enjoy some great food and conversations! No registration required for this event, but please DM me if you're going to attend so that I can let the organizers know! (It will help with planning/food)

Saturday we shift gears as we get into our regularly scheduled October cleanup. This time TrashLoveKzoo is proud to partner up with the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council & other supporting organizations for another Kalamazoo River stewardship event!

Come join us for a fun and exciting day celebrating and beautifying both the Kalamazoo River & Portage Creek then stick around after to enjoy the post cleanup festivities!

This event does require registration prior to attending, so dont forget to check out the link in the copy paste of the KRWC post below to get the registration completed!

TrashLoveKzoo will be organizing the onshore portion of the cleanup. As usual we will be providing trash grabbers, trash bags, ppe, first aid etc.

Be sure to register, and I'll see you all in October!!

Ian🗑❤️ 🎃

KRWC post :

Come together and take part in cleaning up the Kalamazoo River Watershed with options to participate, on shore, in Portage Creek, and on the Kalamazoo River. Clean-up the watershed while the water levels are low and the currents are slow; the Fall is the perfect time to care for the river. Join us Saturday, October 3rd for the cleanup from 10am-12:30pm. Following the cleanup, we’ll host a gathering at our office (1523 Riverview Dr.) where we’ll have food from Mi Lindo Michoacán & yard games!

You choose where you’d like to participate: Walk on shore on the KRVT from Mayor’s Riverfront Park to Verburg Park, wade in Portage Creek from Stockbridge towards Upjohn Park, or paddle in the Kalamazoo River by kayak or canoe from Mayor’s Park to Verburg.

Folks who are paddling will need to supply their own vessel; we will not have rentals for this event. If you are planning to help out at Portage Creek, you will also need to bring your own waders. All necessary PPE including high vis vests, gloves, trash grabbers, and trash bags will be provided.

Registration is required, visit kalamazooriver.org/krazy-for-the-kazoo-community-cleanups/ to register.

First off, thank you so much to all of the hardworking volunteers who made today's results possible. You are all VERY special humans for coming out to pick trash on a holiday weekend, but you did that all while sweating from the 90% humidity, traversing the tightest of deer trails, not to mention the trash pit of despair...

THANK YOU! ❤️

Today went great! We were again blessed with great detrashing weather. We had two new volunteers join us! We were able to get several hundred pounds of trash removed, but this site still has a ways to go before we're done. Under the Mills street bridge we picked up nearly two hundred pounds of metal (scrapper picked it up already so its being recycled) tons of styrofoam (we had to sweep up bags and bags of silt mixed with foam debris) and several used syringes.

At the second area, we hiked into a completely overgrown deer trail type area. Walking the trail we passed alot of litter but we pushed on. We were headed to the trash pit of despair. (Great name BTW Nick)

To maximize trash pickin efficiency, some volunteers began chipping away at the massive trash pit filling bag after bag, while other volunteers cleared the trail to make it safer and began the arduous process of trucking those heavy bags all the way down that trail and out to the street for pickup.

Overall it was an exhausting but extremely rewarding day of stewardship along the Kalamazoo River!

We're always looking for people to join us out here, many hands make light work! We provide refreshments, PPE, trash picking tools of all sorts. If you'd like to come be a part the TLK detrashing revolution, send me a DM with your first name and cell # and I'll get you added to the TLK text notification list!

Ian 🗑 ❤️

Hello TLK trash pickin fam,

It's time for our September TLK cleanup, Sep. 5th at 10 am through 2pm!

This month we're picking trash from along the rivers edge near Mayors Riverfront Park.

Meetup/parking area will be at the parking lot right next to the Mills street bridge, down the street from growlers stadiums main entrance, roughly at coordinates 42.292453,-85.566229

We’ll have a pop up tent onsite for shade so you can't miss it.

We plan to be onsite until 2pm, although that depends on what sort of weather conditions we end up with on Saturday.

As always, TLK will be providing trash grabbers, trash bags, buckets, gloves, bug spray, etc.

The weather forecast Saturday could end up hot and potentially rainy. The forecast is calling for rain showers early with mostly cloudy conditions later in the day. High around 80F. Winds East Northeast at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain are 50%

If the weather forecast worsens and we are unable to proceed with the event, the changes/postpone notifications will be made to the TLK Facebook page as well as the TLK subreddit on Reddit.

Please remember to dress for the environment / weather we'll be working in. This area has small trails, with at least 3 different types of stickerburrs, thorny bushes and dense overgrown areas. Due to the risk of over exertion, hydrating yourself well the day prior is advised. We will have water onsite courtesy of Gordon water supply, so remember to bring your refillable TLK bottles!

See you there!

Ian 🗑❤️

First off,

Thank you so much to all of the hardworking and dedicated volunteers we're blessed to have. Your work out there today was nothing short of incredible. I'm extremely thankful for each and every single one of you.

THANK YOU!

TrashLoveKzoo held its August cleanup today, and we dodged the rain again!! The cloud cover helped lower the temps and provided a measure of relief from the hot sun above.

Everything went great today, but lessons were learned when one of our volunteers got into a nest of ground hornets while he was removing a buried peice of litter. He was stung about five or six times on his hands and stomach area! Luckily he is not allergic. The moment was pretty intense though and I'm very thankful to report he's doing fine. I have since stocked the first aid kit with Benadryl, ibuprofen and acetaminophen incase this ever happens again.

Even after a few years doing this, we're still learning and growing!

Walking through the forest after the cleanup I found myself looking for the familiar trash landmarks that have been there for years.

They're finally GONE. ❤️

Looking around you'd never even know that well over 5 tons of trash has been pulled out of this tiny little forest.

The old mattress has been a constant thorn in our sides since we discovered it almost 2 years ago. Im happy to report that we finally removed it from the woods!

Not only that, we also removed the aluminum ladder thats been out there for just as long as the mattress. It was chained up and pad locked to some burned out trees.

With the area cleaned out now I'll be doing frequent check backs to ensure it stays detrashed.

Next month our attention will be focused on a new area, and I cant wait to see what challenges await us there!

Ian 🗑 ❤️

Some of you will undoubtedly remember this mattress that's been a thorn in our sides since we started cleaning the forest area next to mount olivet.

Tonight after work I went out to do the third and final check back on the spots for the cleanup tomorrow.

After I got home I was checking the weather forecast for tonight and lo and behold the mattress was about to get rained on yet again. Not this time!! To keep everything dry I hurried back and placed a tarp over the mattress and the huge rolled up carpet.

I really hope that it all stays dry overnight so that the dream of seeing it removed will finally come true for us.

Hoping for good weather tomorrow 🤞 there's a forty percent chance of rain. Either way it's my intention to see at least the crumbling smelly heavy ol' mattress cleared out once and for all! 😄

The best part of tonights hike in the woods was when I found a beautiful Eastern box turtle. It was all tucked away for the night, but I grabbed some photos to share with you all.

The Eastern box turtle is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN red list. One step from endangered. They suffer terribly with loss of habitat - especially where this one is at, its a tiny sliver of forest compared to what it used to be, road fatalities and plastic ingestion deaths, just to name a few.

Glad to be able to help remove one of those hazards for them ❤️ 🐢 🌎

Ian 🗑 ❤️

Hey everyone!

TLK is hosting its monthly trash cleanup this Saturday, Aug.1st. If you'd like to join us, check out r/trashlovekzoo for the details.

Be aware that rain is expected.

We'll still be out there cleaning up trash unless its determined to be unsafe to do so.

Can't wait to meet you out there for some soggy Saturday stewardship!

Ian 🗑 ❤️

Hey everyone!

Today after work I spent a couple hours detrashing near the boat launch area at Twin Lakes. This massive pile of drywall was so deteriorated that it was washing down the ramp area and straight out into the lake. I managed to get the worst of the dump piles done today, but there's more, and its even closer to the lake than the one I worked on today. I'll be out there tomorrow after work to grab today's trash bags to take them to the landfill. I ran out of time today.

I'll post in r/trashlovekzoo next time I'm heading out there to work on the site more, so be sure to follow that sub if you're interested in joining one of our cleanup events. We provide everything needed, including trash tongs, gloves, trash bags, PPE, etc.

To stay looped in for the TLK main monthly cleanup, I can add you to our text notification list, all you need to do is send me a DM with your name and cell #. I send out one text per month with cleanup location and other details.

Ian 🗑❤️

First off, thank you to all of the amazing volunteers who spent the first half of their July 4th holiday sweating with us in the woods. Due to your hard work and dogged determination, we were able to make a huge difference for this ecosystem.

The weather wasn't the worst we've picked trash in, but the humidity and heat combined with the lack of any breeze made for a pretty challenging atmosphere to work in. Volunteers stayed well hydrated and frequent breaks were taken to ensure no one over exerted themselves.

I'm very happy to report that all of our trash picking was accomplished safely and with zero incidents!

The staggering amount of litter that covered the forest floor is gone. The needles, glass, and other hazardous items all removed.

The forest can begin to heal.

Ian 🗑 ❤️

Some pictures from today's cleanup of the Kalamazoo River and nearby tributaries. Couldn't ask for better weather, and the turnout was great!

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The organizers for todays event:

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The Kalamazoo Rotary Club, the Kalamazoo Conservation District, and the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council. Three amazing groups working together to heal the river, and creating more awareness to the importance of protecting it.

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Other partnering organizations were:

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KzooParks, Kalamazoo County Government, Link Kalamazoo, League of women voters (Kalamazoo area chapter), Kalamazoo Nature Center, Great Lakes Adventure Club, W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, MI DNR, TLK, Michigan Clean Water Corps, Wild Ones, Hope for creation, Food resilience group, Kalamazoo Bee Club, the Kalamazoo County Sherriff Dive Team, the City of Kalamazoo.

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First off, **THANK YOU** to each and every single one of the *amazing* humans who showed up to clean the woods with us today.

Also, if you've ever joined us for a cleanup event, thank you too. You are all the heartbeat of TLK, and every bit of progress we've made along the way is because of people like you.

We simply couldn't do it without you. 🧡

For today's event, not only were we blessed to have cooperative weather, but we also had two new volunteers join us!

In addition, (and most importantly) everyone went home safe at the end of the day.

As for the days results, we got over a thousand pounds of trash and several hundred pounds of recyclable material picked up and out of the woods. The massive pile of recyclables we pulled out of the woods today is already at KMR (Thank you Melvin!) and well on it's way to a new life!

This type of volunteer work is **very** important.

It gives the forest ecosystem a chance to heal and all of the insects & animals who call it home get their homes back without all of that disgusting trash choking out the vegetation.

Im already looking forward to the next one, and I can't wait to see you all again in July!

If you'd like to find out how to join a TLK cleanup, please feel free to reach out to me directly and I'll get you linked up!

Ian 🗑❤️

Hey everyone, it's time for the June TLK cleanup on Saturday June 6th, at 10 am!

For this month's cleanup event we'll be returning to a location we cleaned a few times last year.

The litter is back, so before it gets out of control again, we're going to get in there and clean it all out!

Meetup/parking area will be on Old Riverview, coordinates 42.3139128, -85.5704512

Near Old Riverview Srv Rd, Kalamazoo, MI 49004

As always, TLK will be providing trash grabbers, trash bags, buckets, gloves, bug spray, etc.

Water will also be provided, so don't forget to bring a reusable water bottle. We will also have some snacks available as well.

The weather for Saturday is expected to be sunny and warm with a high of 80° forecasted for the day. Please remember to dress for the environment we'll be working in. This area is know to have thorny bushes and dense overgrown areas.

Due to the heat and physical exertion, hydrating yourself really well the day prior is advised!

Cant wait to see you there!

Ian 🗑❤️

Today we were blessed with great weather and a spectacular turnout. First and foremost, HUGE thanks to everyone who came out. Volunteers make this whole thing happen, and none of these cleanup events would be possible without them!

When all was said and done we were able to remove hundreds of pounds of trash, a soggy mattress, assorted bulk trash items, etc. from the forest.

All of us left the site this afternoon a little tired and alot dirty, but we were all very satisfied with the end results.

There are several areas on the radar for next month's cleanup, and I can't wait to see you all out there again in June TLK family!

Ian 🗑❤️

If you're interested in joining TLK on one of our cleanups, follow us over at r/trashlovekzoo , or you can join our text notification list by shooting me a DM with your first name and cell phone number. We send out one text per month with cleanup details.

We provide trash tongs, buckets, bags, gloves etc. Snacks and water are also provided at all of our events.

we'll be out behind the aldi on Gull road til 2pm, stop by for some healthy snacks and cool water, then lend a hand beautifying a lovely forested area.

Hey everyone, it's time for the May TLK cleanup!

This time, we're returning to a location we first cleaned last year. The litter is back. Before it gets out of control again, we're going to get in there and do what we do best!

When: Saturday May 2nd at 10am going til 2pm

Where: 3720 Gull road

Meetup/parking area will be in BACK part of the Aldi parking lot.

As always, TLK will be providing trash grabbers, trash bags, buckets, gloves, etc. for all volunteers.

Water will also be provided, so won't forget to bring your reusable water bottle.

The weather is expected to be sunny, but pretty chilly with a high of 50° forecasted for the day.

Cant wait to see you all again!

Ian 🗑❤️