We received an impromptu history lesson as our digging through plastic gave way to metal, to glass which a few layers down gave way to wood.
Two teachers haul out trash during a faculty meeting break
A school parent, teacher, and local community member join forces amidst the ferns
According to the thank you letter we wrote to our grant funders, Ben & Jerry Community Action Team, we hauled out 1380 pounds of trash and 1600 pounds of metal. The money we earned for the metal was spent to pay for trash hauling and disposal. Spaulding VYCC school crews, funded by a riparian restoration foundation, came in that fall to finish cleaning up and pulled out another huge amount of metal and trash from our blessed Kingsbury Tributary.
While it was neat to see how the earth had grown over vestiges of our previous civilization, we knew we were doing the right thing to free these nonbiodegradable trails from the soil's embrace.