WORCESTER, Mass. — In just six weeks, the Worcester Green Corps — a project of the Worcester Regional Chamber, the United Way of Central Massachusetts and the City of Worcester  — has picked up almost 575 bags of litter totaling more than 3,600 pounds.

Dozens of local teens in bright green tee-shirts have been lining the streets this summer with white trash grabbers and black trash bags. The crew picks up about 150 to 200 pounds of trash a day, all throughout the city: from Webster Square to Coe’s Park, Crompton Park to Crystal Park, Dorchester Street or Quinsigamond Lake and everywhere in between.

Photo by Monica Sager.

This collaborative effort aims to keep the city’s green spaces and streets clean for residents and visitors year-round, according to Miranda Hotham, the Worcester Green Corps Coordinator. 

Fallon Health and National Grid are supporters of the program, and other organizations are encouraged to make a contribution on the Chamber’s website to ensure the program’s sustainability.

Worcester Green Corps is an official chapter of Keep Massachusetts Beautiful, which collaborates with volunteers, businesses and government agencies to take action and make Massachusetts cleaner and greener. The pilot program began in May. District Manager Mason Rainford and others lead the Corps.

“I don’t think this program would have worked if we didn’t have all of these groups behind it,” Rainford said.

Included in this year-round effort is the summer career pathways program, which ends on August 13. For six weeks, 25 high school students part of the Worcester Community Action Council’s YouthWorks program participate in litter clean ups and other beautification projects.

“It’s tough work, but the kids have been keeping with it,” Rainford said. “I’ve been impressed with their attitude. Part of it is when you’re cleaning up the streets where you’re from, there’s a certain identity and attachment to them.”

“On Fridays, we have the career pathways,” Hotham said. “We meet at the National Grid Sustainability Hub. We have speakers come, each week has a different theme and they talk about their careers. We’ve also been going on field trips.”

Hotham said that the hands-on experience has been good for the teens. The field trips allow them to see different job opportunities. And they are able to see the tangible impact that their work makes in the community.

“It’s shown me independence and working at a young age shows you what you can do in the future,” Cedric Tolson said. “I wanted to do this.”

Littering and illegal dumping is a serious issue, said Hotham. She says the Corps has found a lot of car parts in the woods and in places like Coes Pond.

“One of the biggest problems in Worcester is the recycling bins not having the lid. That’s always been a problem. It overflows,” Hotham said. “People put their trash out way too early, so the wind takes it all over the place and you have animals going through it.”

Hotham said the city just passed a program though to hand out 52,000 bins with lids to every home. Dhungel, though, suggested that the City of Worcester should have more trash bins on the streets to encourage people to throw out their trash, rather than leaving it on the streets. Hotham added that she also wants to see that as well and that she’s been advocating for more bins.

Photo by Monica Sager.

“It’s starts small, one person at a time.” Hotham said. “You tell your friends and they tell their friends. I hope that Worcester will be able to change our mentality about waste. I’m really impressed with the kids. They’re doing a great job.”

Tolson added that the group’s visibility in picking up litter has the power to change many resident’s littering habits.

“I feel like when people see us picking up, it makes them have more respect for us,” Tolson said. “They start monitoring what they’re doing and don’t leave trash on the ground.”

Jose Alamo said that he’s learned a lot about the environment through the program. Alamo, who’s from Vernon Hill, expected his own community to be better and cleaner than it was.

“I was embarrassed,” Alamo said. “I expected it to be a couple bags or so, but it ended up being a whole bunch.”

The team picked up 60 bags of trash from Vernon Hill over three days, totaling more than 870 pounds of litter. Unlike the Public Works and Parks Department, Rainford said, the group is able to pick up trash anywhere beside private property, including municipal lots, the sidewalk or in front of a business.

The teens also said that the fact that they’re able to make a difference within their own communities makes the program have more impact on them.

“It means a lot,” Augustine Mbokar said. “I didn’t know there was trash all over the place. As soon as I started doing this, I picked up a little trash and I didn’t drop it on the ground. I’ll wait until I get home.”

Mbokar said he’s also started to call people out for littering. He said that each person needs to pitch in or else there won’t be a change.

“I think one of the biggest impacts is when people in the community see that the trash that gets put on the streets, it doesn’t just blow away,” Rainford said. “It doesn’t just disappear. It either stays there or gets picked up.”

Members of the Chamber are encouraged to request a visit from the Green Corps. The Unique Cafe, for example, did so, and the group then worked on Millbury Street earlier this month. The group can help with many tasks such as litter pick-up, window washing, graffiti removal, paint touch ups, sidewalk maintenance, and overgrowth removal.

Photo by Monica Sager.

In addition, the Green Corps is hoping to get more individuals and neighborhood groups involved. Volunteer applications are available on the Chamber’s website and accepted on a rolling basis.

Hotham said she has already talked to groups from Clark University, WPI, Major Bloom, and Berkshire Bank about having clean up days for their organizations. She hopes to have similar groups join in.

For a minimum $10 donation, Keep Massachusetts Beautiful will also send volunteers their own litter cleanup kits to get involved. Kits include a cleanup/grabber tool, an official Mass Litter Cleanup Crew safety T-shirt, official Mass Litter Cleanup Crew reusable trash bags, and a pair of high-quality gloves.

All in all, Hotham wants to help Worcester go green. She added that the Worcester Green Plan, which started this year to focus on growing sustainably and growing green, will add to this initiative.

“We have Polar Park here now. We’re really growing economically,” Hotham said. “We want to do that in a way that’s sustainable and takes care of the residents as well.”