Community asked to do some ‘heavy lifting’ for those who cannot
AIRWAY HEIGHTS — The effects of COVID-19 range far and wide and creep into the most unusual of places it seems, but the City of Airway Heights is trying to help mitigate that.
If all goes well starting June 1, the city’s code compliance department will focus its resources — and hopefully those of community volunteers — to conduct its yearly cleanup of two mobile home properties within Airway Heights.
“One of the city goals is to help residents maintain their properties and keep things clean,” code compliance officer Kristina Blake said. “A lot of people got hit hard by COVID because those are people who work for minimum wage in service jobs.”
What they’ve been doing every year since 2018 is targeting the mobile home parks because residents there tend to be low income and taking big loads of trash to the incinerator is simply not in the budget.
There is a particular need this year for help from within the community to assist with the clean-up since COVID has slashed involvement from many who have volunteered in the past, Blake explained.
While the target date to start is June 1, and would continue for a few days after, it is very much dependent on the availability of dumpsters provided by Waste Management, Blake said. The cleanup is funded by a grant and will work in both the Lawson and Campbell to remove waste that traditional garbage service cannot.
“That’s where we need volunteers to just kind of help fill dumpsters, help people get heavy things in there because we’ve got a lot of people who are disabled and elderly,” Blake said.
To volunteer to help with the mobile home cleanup contact Kristina Blake, Code Compliance Officer at (509) 413-8992 or [email protected].
Paul Delaney is a retired Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at [email protected].
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