Belleville Residents Unite For Community Cleanup Day

BELLEVILLE, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of the Township of Belleville. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

This year’s annual Community Cleanup event in Belleville was bigger and better than ever, incorporating gardening and landscaping initiatives in honor of Earth Day and expanding to include activities for kids.

Longtime residents, municipal employees and schoolchildren joined together to help tidy up the township at the April 26 event organized by Mayor Michael Melham, the Town Council, the Department of Public Works, the Belleville Green Team and the Belleville Clean Communities Program.

Representatives from the offices of Britnee Timberlake, Carmen Morales and Michael Venezia – all of the 34th Legislative District – also pitched in.

This year’s Community Cleanup centered in and around Municipal Stadium at Belleville High School, after focusing on cleaning the sides of the roadways along Main Street the past few years.

“We originally looked at doing another cleanup there, the state apparently replaced some fencing along there,” said Councilman Vinnie Cozzarelli. “So, they did a pretty good job of cleaning that area, picking up liter, cutting down weeds. We decided to shift to the area near the high school, and that was good because we got a chance to show residents in another part of Belleville that helping make their neighborhood look even better is important, too.”

In addition to picking up wind-blown fast food wrappers and stray bottle caps, volunteers undertook a not-so-small beautification project.

The group, with the help of members of the DPW, used shovels and rakes to unload and spread two truckloads of mulch.

It’s events like this where Belleville pride sprouts up like tulips, daffodils and other spring flowers, said Melham.

“Pulling together, digging in and literally getting our hands dirty to make our town look a little bit better – there was a lot of pride on display,” Melham said. “Not even the rain could dampen that spirit.”

That spirit spread to even the youngest volunteers, like soon-to-be 2-year-old Gianni Cozzarelli, who used a toy gardening tool to help with the mulch project.

The kids had a great a time. The grabbed paint brushes and markers and participated in rock coloring activities. The rocks were then put on display at the pocket park on Division Avenue.

Children also planted flowers in small pots that they got to bring home, while the DPW passed out tree saplings to the adults.

“On Earth Day, many people choose to act locally, and in Belleville that means working to make the town we live in even cleaner and greener,” said Gaby Bennett-Meany, who works as field naturalist when she’s not serving on the municipal Green Team or the Board of Education.

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