Volunteers Work to Clean-Up Downtown Cedar Rapids

By Nadia Crow, Reporter

Haley Anderson, 13, and Bryton Hahn, 6, both of Cedar Rapids, react to hearing they collected the most trash during the iGreenCR clean up, at Green Square Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Saturday, March 17, 2012. The winners of the clean up won a ride in a fire truck for the St. Patrick's Day parade. (Nikole Hanna/The Gazette/KCRG)

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By KCRG Intern

Story Created: Sep 22, 2012 at 1:01 PM CDT

Story Updated: Sep 22, 2012 at 11:30 PM CDT

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - I Green C-R, Do You? That's the name of a new initiative in Cedar Rapids. The goal is to get city residents to pitch in and pick up litter throughout the city.

With bright green bags in hand, more than 30 volunteers hit the banks of the Cedar River to pick-up whatever was left behind Saturday morning.

"Here it's mainly bottles, pop bottles, cans, things of that sort,” said volunteer Robert Cappmeyer.

"Everything from cigarette bottles to fishing lines to cups to the general garbage,” said volunteer Eddy Myers.

About 25 volunteers from the C-R Quiet Flyers along with a handful of AmeriCorps volunteers scoured the city to pick up litter lying around. Its part of the city's I Green CR, Do You Initiative. Stamp across Cedar Rapids highlight sustainability projects like LED lights at City Hall or using eco-friendly materials to clean the tree of Five Seasons. But one volunteer says beautifying the city is a community effort.

"It has to take everybody to solve a problem,” said Myers.

Although it was windy...

"It's actually not bad when you get down there out of the wind,” said Myers.

And a bit chilly to start the fall season...

"No, no this is good weather,” said Cappmeyer.

...it didn’t stop these volunteers from cleaning up the city's greatest natural resource or the streets nearby.

"Garbage is a bad thing all the way around. You should clean-up your own litter. It shouldn't look like this,” said Myers.

Not just the river banks, volunteers worked on the streets of downtown and seven neighborhood litter collection sites.

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