Credit union to lead community spring cleanup on June 19
SAULT STE. MARIE — This Juneteenth, the Sault Co-op Credit Union will be leading volunteers across Chippewa County in a community cleaning effort.
This Monday, June 19 marks what Sault Co-op hopes to be the first of many annual downtown cleaning events, as a way to connect with and give back to the community.
While community members can sign up to volunteer, it will be led by the credit union employees. Volunteer employees and community members will be joining clean-up efforts in the downtown areas of every Sault Co-op branch location.
This includes 80 different employees at seven different branches, including three locations in the Soo. The main location off of I-75 leading into town, one in Kewadin Casino, one on the downtown island, and locations in Brimley, Kinross, Cedarville and Bay Mills are included.
"A majority of our staff is involved with the cleanup, as well as some community members," said Chelsea Mahan, marketing associate for the co-op. "This is something that we are doing to give back to the community, but we're also inviting the community if anyone wants to jump in with us."
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Each location will be sending out cleaners, and asking for community members to join in the event. The cleaning will be broken up into several phases in each area, first with garbage pickup, then with sidewalk sweeping — focused on areas in downtown Sault which have recently seen construction — and then the efforts to clean up community gardens and flowerbeds.
The cleaning will extend into whatever the area needs, but will mostly consist of picking up litter and debris. Some branches, including the Bay Mills branch, will be cleaning gravestones at local cemeteries as well.
As this is the first year of the event, it is expected to change and grow in the coming years, as the credit union hopes to make it a larger community event.
"It started with an idea from a development manager Sam Brown to use an employee training day to give back to the community, to try and beautify it," said Mahan. "We're hoping in this first year to get a few people to come along and next year we hope to make it bigger and better, get as many people from the community to join forces as we can."
— Contact Brendan Wiesner: BWiesner@Sooeveningnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Sault News: Sault credit union to lead community spring cleanup on June 19
