Great Cooperation Nets Great Results

Last Saturday in the very cold wind, almost 400 volunteers came together for Carrollton Cares Volunteer Day to make Carrollton a better place to play. The Elm Fork Nature Preserve coordinator, Elizabeth Acosta, put together teams from Keep Carrollton Beautiful, businesses, scouts, and service organizations from Creekview, Hebron, Ranchview and Turner to complete major maintenance projects at five different locations in Carrollton. Most of the volunteers are accustomed to volunteering for Keep Carrollton Beautiful, so they took it all in stride. There isn’t much that can’t be accomplished with cooperation!

Besides Ms. Acosta, City of Carrollton employees Heather Grance, Gena Spradling, Theresa Ostrander, as well as Tammy from the Senior Center all pitched in with the volunteers to accomplish the work. Keep Carrollton Beautiful’s executive director, Sharon Goddard, and two Keep Carrollton Beautiful Board of Directors members, Diane Taheri and Cathy Henesey “manned” two of the locations.

Ms. Acosta split the volunteers up into groups. Some, supervised by Halliburton employees, worked at the Dimension Tract to spread mulch on the trail all the way down to the canoe put-in to cover the gushy mud and picked up trash around the whole area. Others were at the Elm Fork Nature Preserve spreading mulch on trails, picking up trash and sealing benches. Others, including many homeowners, worked at each of two greenbelts – Nob Hill Greenbelt Park - from McCoy Road to Frankford and Greenbelt Park - from Josey Lane to Woodlake Elementary School picking up trash. The largest group, including many Halliburton employees lead by Kathy Williams, volunteering for Keep Carrollton Beautiful, sealed all the benches at the Senior Center/Library Complex at Josey Ranch, sealed the fence around the “natural area” at the library and pick-up trash from Keller Springs, all through Josey Ranch Sports Complex including the lakes and creek and down to Thomas swimming pool. What a great accomplishment in only two hours!

“We could have never been so efficient if it wasn’t for Elizabeth’s planning and coordination. She had all the supplies ready for us and everyone knew what was expected of them at each of the sites,” said Sharon Goddard, Keep Carrollton Beautiful. “She did a great job!”

They had some wonderful in-kind donors – coffee from Starbucks, sealer from Keller Moore paint, composted mulch from Living Earth Technologies, drinks from Pepsi – but best of all was all the wonderful (and warm) pizza from Little Caesars. Since some of the volunteers didn’t stay for lunch, they took the still piping hot pizza to Juliet Fowler Home.

If you’d like to find out how you can help at the Elm Fork Nature Preserve, go to
www.cityofcarrollton.com/leisure/parksrec. If you’d like to volunteer for Keep Carrollton Beautiful, their next event is the Great American Cleanup on 4-19-08. Go to www.KeepCarrolltonBeautiful.org for information and registration.
***END***