A big thank you to the Civic Action Group at Sisters of the Road, who let me follow them around Old Town for three hours on Saturday, doing a neighborhood cleanup. There'll be more in this week's paper, but I thought you might be interested to see how much trash they picked up: A whole dumpster full. 35 trash bags, including everything from cigarette butts to socks, used medical equipment (?!) to cardboard boxes. It was all pretty impressive, particularly because of the wide range of people taking part. There were neighborhood residents (although nobody from the Old Town Neighborhood Association, sadly), homeless people, Sisters' board members, and even people in the social work masters' program from PSU. Here's just seven of the 30 people taking part, proudly in front of the trash haul:

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That dumpster in the background was empty before they started. Talk about civic pride.