Spicket River Cleanup
Save the day, 12th Annual Spicket River Cleanup Saturday, September 21, 2013!
It may be early, but now is a great time to start thinking about volunteering for Spicket River Cleanup 2013. You can participate individually or as group. For more information email Rosa or by phone at 978-974-0770x7001. If you have a corporate team or are interested in sponsoring Spicket River Cleanup, please email Amanda or call her at 978-974-0770 x7007.
Spicket River Cleanup
The 11th Annual Cleanup was on September 22, 2012. Thank you to all the great volunteers and sponsors!
Read the Eagle Tribune's coverage of the 2012 cleanup - Spicket cleanup draws hundreds to Lawrence
For more information or to learn how your business or group can participate in next year's Spicket River Cleanup please email Rosa. or call (978) 974-0770 x 7001
Thank you to everyone who came out to Manchester St. Park and helped out with the 2012 cleanup! We could not have done it without you. Thanks to our sponsors and partners for making the event possible:
Gold Level Sponsor: Enel Green Power
Silver Level Sponsors: Lawrence General Hospital, Specter Textiles, Winn Development
Friend Level Sponsors: Covanta Energy, Farmer Dave's, Jackson Lumber & Millwork, La Fruteria Supermercado, Mainstream Global, Rumbo
Partners: City of Lawrence, Lawrence Heritage State Park (Dept of Conservation & Recreation)
Here are some highlights from the cleanup!
The Spicket River Greenway
The Spicket River Greenway, envisioned by our community as a three-mile long “emerald bracelet” of green spaces and walking paths that connect parks and neighborhoods, represents a series of infrastructure, program, and stewardship investments made by Groundwork Lawrence and the City of Lawrence that are helping to meet the many challenges facing our community. A former mill city in northeastern Massachusetts, Lawrence residents experience high rates of poverty, unemployment, foreclosure, and preventable disease, especially among our lowest-income Latinos who comprise over 70% of our population. The Greenway vision, derived from a multi-year collaborative planning effort led by Groundwork, was identified first in 1998 and continues to serve as a guiding strategy for achieving multiple goals associated with creating a more healthy community. With staunch public support for better riverfront and recreational access, increased walkability, and a healthier natural resource habitat in mind, Groundwork Lawrence has led a persistent, multi-faceted campaign to: advocate for enforcement efforts against illegal dumping with a youth-led Clean Spicket Campaign; raise awareness about the river and its recreational potential; clear invasive species from the river’s edge; improve its habitat with newly-planted natives; and challenge the community to engage in direct action to wholly reclaim our Spicket River.
The Cleanup in Context of the Wider Greenway Initiative
Groundwork Lawrence’s and our partners’ investments in the Spicket River Cleanup over the past few years have helped propel our multi-year Spicket River Greenway campaign, too. Since 2002, Groundwork has engaged over 6,000 residents, students, and local corporations in clearing 110+ tons of debris and over 3,650 tires from the banks of the Spicket River with eleven annual Cleanups. Concurrently, Groundwork has served as project manager to the City of Lawrence, and as such, has leveraged millions in public funds and facilitated the design and construction of four new parks along the Spicket River, including two prominent brownfield-to-park transformations. The greenway is currently in final construction thanks to a $2.65 million investment made by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Gateway City Parks program and matching Lawrence CDBG funds. Indeed, the Spicket River Greenway has inched from vision toward reality thanks to the investment of over $12+ million in public funds on riverfront open space projects, generous donations of cash and in-kind resources, and thousands of ardent volunteer stewardship hours completed during our annual Spicket River Cleanups.