This season’s sporadic sunshine and regular rain notwithstanding, the peek-a-boo daffodils and emerging apple buds clearly show that spring is upon us.
That means it’s time for spring cleaning. Thankfully, we have a number of community groups that can help us work together to tidy up the towns we call home.
It’s a true joy to work alongside other civic-minded folks. You’ll make new friends, feel good about keeping your neighborhood looking good, and you’ll justifiably be proud of being one of the reasons that we CAN have nice things.
Here are a few upcoming options. If I missed any, let me know.
Mint City Maintenance
The good folks of Chehalis will clean up their downtown area on Earth Day, April 22, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Volunteers are invited to meet at the Lewis County Historical Museum, where they will have a list of activities from picking up litter to weeding and sweeping downtown.
“Earth Day weekend is the perfect opportunity to take a little time to spruce things up in our community for the sunny seasons ahead,” said Annalee Tobey, executive director of Experience Chehalis.
This is the second year of the event. It’s a great new annual tradition.
To sweeten the experience, volunteers will be given raffle tickets for downtown merchant gift certificates and Earth Day-themed creations by local artists.
Call 360-345-1738 to register. Learn more at www.experiencechehalis.com/business/earth-day.
Earth Day at Seminary Hill Natural Area
For a number of years, I’ve been privileged to work with the volunteers of the Friends of the Seminary Hill Natural Area, and it’s been so rewarding to take care of our shared hillside forest. You can join in the fun at our annual Earth Day Work Party from 9 a.m. to noon. We meet at the main entrance to the natural area, at the intersection of Centralia College Boulevard and Barner Drive.
Wear sturdy shoes. Bring gloves and tools if you’d like, or we’ll have them for you.
From pulling invasive ivy to helping shore up our extensive trail system, we’ll keep you busy. You’ll come away dirty but feeling proud of helping given a new polish to Centralia’s forested jewel.
We don’t have a party or prizes, but we do have free cookie and coffee — plus an end-of-the-work-party platter of delicious sandwiches donated by Quiznos (Mmmm, toasty!), which definitely counts for something.
Centralia Spruce-Up
The Centralia Downtown Association is hosting a spring clean-up on May 7, with work parties scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Check in at the CDA office to begin your day.
Volunteers will be pulling weeds, scraping sidewalk cracks and doing other work in preparation for professional pressure washing.
Email volunteerCDA@gmail.com if you have a group of folks from your work, church, neighborhood or social circles that you’d like to register. They’ll have prizes for the largest group, most team spirit, largest area cleaned, most creative outfit, farthest distance traveled and more.
Or if you aren’t part of a formal group but have a solo spirit of service, if you just show up ready to work, I suspect they’d be happy with that, too. I’m told there is a volunteer thank-you party from 5 to 7 p.m.
Dad Joke of the Week
I recently received a telephone solicitation call that was actually worth my time — at least for the first few seconds. It was from the Committee for the Eternal Support of Fraternal Police or some other such skim-scam flim-flam group that keeps most of any money that you donate.
The call opened with a decent joke: “You’re the first person I’ve reached in 15 minutes, and I’m pretty tall.”
However, it sounded to me like a canned call, so I did what I normally do when I suspect a recording that’s pretending to be live — I interrupted the patter to ask “are you a real person?”
He kept talking. I hung up on the robot but hung onto the joke.
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Brian Mittge can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
