A St. John the Evangelist youth group collected more than 40 large bags of trash from Riverhead streets Sunday morning.
“We had a great turnout and we are happy that we accomplished our mission,” Grupo de Jovenes Renacer en Cristo (To Be Reborn in Christ) youth group leader Geremias Bosch said, who spearheaded the event.
The around 30 participants separated into different groups and walked along portions of West Main Street, Route 25 and Osborn Avenue. They wore yellow and orange vests and gloves so they were identifiable to oncoming traffic and bought special trash pickers (long, metal sticks that help grab litter) so they could pick up trash more easily.
Photo: Maria Piedrabuena
“We were surprised at the amount of trash we collected,” Bosch said. “Next time we will be better prepared because we couldn’t fit it all in the church’s container.”
Next time, they said they will probably ask the town if they can designate a place to put the garbage they pick up that’s bigger than the church’s container.
Participants of the event were happy and said that it was “a fun day.” Some passersby thanked them and encouraged them, while others criticized them.
“I think they were thinking we were doing community service because of a traffic ticket or something like that, but it’s okay, people get confused. We know that what we were doing , it was from the heart, to help our community,” said Bosch.
Bosch that they look forward to repeating the community service, and possibly even help neighbors with their yards.
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