Shannon Litz / Nevada Appeal
Spurred on by a love for their community, volunteers from Capital Christian Church took on the litter, leaves, brush and tumbleweed piled at Carson High School on Saturday.
Some volunteers started their day at the front of the high school, cleaning up the lawn area then scattering about 1,200 plastic Easter eggs for the Egg-Stravaganza hunt. After the hunt, they continued the clean-up.
While many volunteers worked the Easter egg hunt, about 15-18 others headed to the back of the school, on the east side of the sports fields and took on the heavy-duty cleanup.
Ernie Dionne had arrived at 8:30 a.m. A couple hours into what he expected to be an all-day task, he stuffed litter into a black garbage bag.
“I love Carson City. That’s why I moved here,” Dionne said, explaining why, on the Saturday before Easter, he was taking on the sweaty job. “We (as a church) are just coming out to serve the community we love.”
Rebecca Van Sickle pulled a rack, gathering leaves and weeds behind another volunteer directing a weed-whacker through dried brush.
“I don’t think enough churches and organizations do (this type of work) on a regular bases,” Van Sickle said. “This is a big school. They don’t always have the maintenance staff to do this on a regular bases. It’s nice to come out and help.”
Joe Cordeiro, the staff pastor supervising the cleanup crew, said they had filled up one Dumpster to overflowing and about 15 truck loads of weeds had been hauled away by the two trucks they had working the project.
And it wasn’t even lunch-time yet.
Youths from the church also were hard at work, Cordeiro said, often taking on the nastiest tasks.
“We’re blessed. We’ve got kids out here picking up the prickly tumbleweeds” some without gloves, he said. “They have a heart to serve.”
This is second year the church has taken on a school clean-up project. Last year, they cleaned up at Bordewich-Bray Elementary School, also planting flowers and trees.
“The trees are flourishing,” Cordeiro said.