The city of Cheney is gearing up for its annual day of community-wide spring-cleaning.
The ninth Cheney Clean Sweep takes place Saturday, April 16, from 9 a.m. – noon, and volunteers are needed. In exchange for the work patrolling city right of ways picking up litter, and helping unload larger items at drop-off points, sponsors are providing not only coffee and pastries before the event but also a free lunch to anyone returning to Veterans Park afterwards.
Last year, 300 individuals, including 266 volunteers, helped with Clean Sweep, collecting 8.23 tons of garbage, 4.84 tons of construction debris and 3.40 tons of metals. Additionally, 2,400 pounds of personal documents were shredded at Cheney Federal Credit Union’s “Shred-fest” while 60 old tires were disposed of at Les Schwab.
Again this year, Les Schwab is accepting unmounted tires for free with mounted tires accepted at $4 apiece for passenger and light trucks and $12 for mounted truck tires. Limit of four tires per person.
CFCU will host a document disposal truck from NW Vital Records, Inc. Papers should be clean and free of staples and paper clips and limited to the equivalent of three grocery bags per person.
The credit union is also accepting donations to the Cheney Food Bank, and last year collected over 200 pounds of food. Those who bring food donations will be allowed to bring four bags of shred materials instead of three.
Household hazardous waste is again being accepted this year at the city’s Recycling Center on Anderson Road. Household waste includes paints, solvents, antifreeze, oils, transmission fluids and pool chemicals.
New this year will be GWI E-Cycling, which will be accepting everything from phones to computer towers, servers, laptops and personal electronic devices in the City Hall parking lot at Second and D streets.
“They will charge a nominal fee for the old ‘big tube’ TVs and computer monitors, but nearly everything else is free,” Clean Sweep sponsor coordinator Sue Beeman said.
Dumpster drop-off locations for larger items will again be at Amazing Grace Fellowship, 416 Betz Road, or on Presley Drive across from the Spokane County Fire District 3 headquarters. These sites will accept items such as construction debris and fencing along with metals such as barbecues and bike frames.
Furniture is not allowed.
Volunteers participating in combing the community for trash should check-in at Veterans Memorial Park between 8 – 8:30 a.m. Pick-up work is a great opportunity for groups such as scout troops, church youth organizations as well as individuals.
To maximize cleanup efforts, Public Works Director Todd Ableman said street crews have been making note of problem areas of the city while going about their normal duties. Ableman said they would assign larger groups of people to areas of heavy use, such as downtown and in the north commercial district around State Route 904 and Simpson Parkway.
“We don’t want 2-3 people in one area who might get overwhelmed,” he said.
Beeman said all 13 sponsors from last year have re-upped for Clean Sweep 2016. Sponsors help out with a variety of needs such as providing lunch, bags of thank-you goodies for volunteers; coffee, juice and pastries for registration and boxes of disposable gloves to assist in the work.
“I think it’s pretty great that so many businesses in Cheney are committed to supporting the community cleanup effort,” Beeman said. “It costs them time and resources, but they keep pitching in year after year to encourage the annual ‘town facelift.’”
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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