PORT ANGELES — A small group of students is making a clean sweep, having recently completed two trash cleanups with two more to come.
New volunteers are invited to join Hope After Heroin for cleanups in the Fairmount area in West Port Angeles today and at Lincoln Park on Friday.
The group will meet at 12:30 p.m. today at the Fairmount Grocery gas station located at the intersection of South Fairmount Avenue and U.S. Highway 101 to begin a cleanup of Benson Road and around the Welcome Inn Trailer Park bordered by Bean Road and Fairmount Avenue.
On Friday, volunteers will meet at 12:30 p.m. at Lincoln Park on the south side of the softball fields to pick up trash in the pond area, on trails and in the playground.
After the cleanup Friday, volunteers will travel to Ediz Hook for refreshments.
Founders
The founders of Hope After Heroin are Lincoln High School students Makiah Sperry, 17; Caitlin Balser, 17; Chante Robideau, 17; and Micah Nichols 16, who have said they have seen the effects of drug abuse by friends and family members and want to help in any way they can.
Tina Sperry, Makiah’s mother, oversees the group as the adult supervisor.
The youth group, including volunteers ages 8 to 21 years old, draws from Lincoln and Port Angeles high schools, Stevens Middle School and Franklin Elementary School.
“We all have been affected by drugs in one way or another. We all have a common goal to let the community know we no longer wish to sit by and watch the abuse the drugs are taking on our town and loved ones,” Tina Sperry said.
Anyone who wants to volunteer is welcome, as long as they are not active drug users, Sperry said.
Hope After Heroin meets Mondays at 7 p.m. at the White Crane Martial Arts Studio.
Initial effort
In the group’s first outing Oct. 9, it gathered more than 20 students to pick up trash by Hollywood Beach near the intersection of Railroad Avenue and North Lincoln Street.
They found and disposed of 20 hypodermic needles and picked up six large bags of trash from the beach and along the rocky shoreline nearby.
On Oct. 23, the group gathered 220 pounds of trash and 24 needles during a cleanup around and behind the stairs above the Conrad Dyar Memorial Fountain at First and Laurel streets.
The group needs donations of garbage bags, tongs for picking up trash, heavy work gloves and reflective vests to help the volunteers do their work safely, as well as black T-shirts to make Hope After Heroin shirts for the volunteers.
For more information, the group can be contacted on Facebook, online at http://tinyurl.com/PDN-hope, by calling Tina Sperry at 360-809-0836 or emailing hopeafterheroin@yahoo.com.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
