2019 Americana Drive Cleanup
Presidents Day, February 18
(rescheduled from
Martin Luther King Day)

After the cleanup

Friends of Accotink Creek members supported and participated in a community cleanup along Americana Drive. This cleanup was planned and led by the Fairfax County Restoration Project, with great support from both the community and County partners. FACC has lots of experience with cleanups, but we don't often see people take the initiative to plan and lead cleanups in their communities, so we were delighted to support this project.

FCRP did excellent work bringing in partners to support the project, and doing reaching out to the community for volunteers. We had 80+ participants, and in 4 hours, we collected 352 bags of trash, and filled a dumpster with contractor debris and abandoned furniture! Americana Drive had the appearance of an orange and black caterpillar from all the piles of orange and black bags piled along its length.

Two candidates for the Braddock Supervisor position, Irma Corado and James Walkinshaw joined us, along with a very diverse and enthusiastic team of volunteers!

Cleanups like this make an enormous difference, by removing trash from the landscape before it gets washed into storm drains, and into Accotink Creek. There is also a strong community benefit to bringing people together to work for the common good. This is an issue that's too much for any one person to address, or for one cleanup to solve, but events like this inspire people to get involved in protecting and restoring their local habitat. We hope that this successful event will inspire ongoing community cleanup actions, and empower residents and communities to take the lead on litter reduction initiatives.

Partners:

• Clean Fairfax - cleanup supplies
• FCPD - Police officers helped slow traffic and provide safety.
• Friends of Accotink Creek - joined VDOT's Adopt-a-Highway program as official partner.
• Rotary Club of Annandale - donation for food
• Supervisor Cook's office
• VDOT - Site access, supplies, and roadside trash pickup
• Vistas of Annandale

• Boy Scout Troop 1978
• Friends of Accotink Creek
• Friends of Lake Accotink Park
• Oakton High School
• Poe Middle School
• Tall Trees South
• Vistas of Annandale

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A Thank You from Fairfax County Restoration Project:
You are the hardest working group of volunteers ever! We can’t thank you enough for all the time and energy that went into the Clean Up event yesterday! I want to especially thank the Rotary Club of Annandale for the donation for food, I hope you all enjoyed the donut holes & the pizza -- the awesome pickup truck drivers who helped move the large items – we couldn’t have done it without you! – the Vistas of Annandale for the use of the office lobby for a comfort station – the amazing police officers who made lots of bag replenishment runs and kept us all safe, -- the Tall tree community for helping us with the zone 1 & 2 sign ins and supply distribution – Solid Waste Management for locating the disappearing dumpster on very short notice – Friends of Accotink Creek for providing endless support, muscle and awesomeness, and for helping wherever it was necessary – to the amazing array of volunteers from the Poe Middle Schoolers and the other students, to those who came in from Bethesda to help, to all the residents up and down Americana and living in the block, to those who showed up with their own tools — to those on NextDoor for motivating to get this arranged, sorry I missed you yesterday – and to Eduardo who transported volunteers to and fro -- you all made this a terrific experience and you all deserve a huge round of applause.
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU.

More cleanup pictures here
Annandale Blog story

Cleanup volunteers from The Vistas of Annanadale