Clean-up unites community outdoors

By Steve Kidd - Penticton Western News - March 23, 2008

This might be the first weekend of spring, but Adopt-A-Trail organizers want you to kick the season off in style Saturday by joining with them and other volunteers to clean up a section of the Penticton Creek trail.

The event gets underway at 10 a.m., starting just behind McNicoll Park school and working up to the city’s water filtration plant at the top of the walkway. This is the second year for the event and organizer Dorothy Tinning expects it to be even bigger than last year, when they had 80 people turn out to help. This year, she said, she hopes to see twice that number.

“We’ve got more children involved and the support of other interested groups like the fly fishers, the naturalists of Penticton and ecostudies, who are working in conjunction with the Meadowlark Festival,” she said. They’ve also had confirmation that MLA Bill Barisoff will be attending and Penticton Mayor Jake Kimberley will also be coming out to say a few words.

And they’ve got a special event to kick the day off, Tinning added, with a group from Okanagan Drumming, led by Bobby Bovenzi, on scene to get everyone energized.

“It’s a wonderful get together, as well as getting everybodyto give back a little to the community,” said Tinning,

The project started out as a partnership between the Penticton chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women and Okanagan College, as a way of increasing the club’s scope of involvement with the community. But many other groups have joined in, Tinning said, including the Penticton Junior Vees 1997 Selects team, who will also be on the path helping clean up.

Tinning said the walk up the creek will take about 40 minutes, with coffee as a reward, courtesy of the CFUW volunteers and Jack Kelly Coffee.

“We serve coffee at the far end and everybody mixes and mingles,” Tinning added. “The city also has some small seedlings to give out for people to plant.”

Ecostudies from Okanagan College will also have a booth on site, educating the volunteers about the plants and animals they are likely to encounter, which include stands of rare black cottonwoods.

Tinning, who is also an artist, said this is a great opportunity to get out and experience the natural beauty of the area. Many people use the trails adjacent to their neighbourhoods, said Tinning, but she suggests that people get out and try some of the other trails, like the Penticton Creek walkway.

“This is really spectacular, this creek that flows down to Okanagan Lake. It starts 20 kilometres up, at Greyback dam,” she said.

“Everybody loves to get outside at this time of year. It’s so peaceful and beautiful, especially along the creek.”

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Clean-up unites community outdoors

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