WENDELL — Last year’s litter cleanup was held in memory of Ted Lewis, a former Selectboard member who had long been a partner in organizing the annual endeavor. This year, the weeklong event will actually bear his name.
The 2023 TED Walk is set for April 16 through April 22, with organizers retrieving filled trash bags and other debris that final day. Participants can get free collection bags from the Wendell Free Library and Diemand Farm and leave the bags filled safely off the road as long as they inform organizers of the bags’ whereabouts for pickup.
“I can’t stand litter. It’s disgusting,” commented organizer Anne Diemand Bucci. “And I really like to gather people together and do things for the community.”
People are also invited to drop off bags of roadside trash at the Wendell Recycling and Transfer Station at 341 New Salem Road. This is free of charge if people tell Transfer Station employees the bags are filled with roadside rubbish collected during the townwide cleanup.
Diemand Bucci, who started the annual cleanup about 45 years ago, said she grew close with Lewis and got to know the man well while walking alongside him cleaning Wendell’s streets year after year. She explained the name “TED Walk” is a spin on TED Talks, the series of international talks posted online for free. Lewis died on June 10, 2021. He was 91.
“He was … kind of like a father to me,” Diemand Bucci said this week.
Fellow organizer Maggie Houghton said she walks her dogs every day and regularly picks up as much trash as possible.
“I just do not like seeing all that trash out there,” she said. “It just irritates me to see the stuff out there. It’s hard for me to understand why people think it’s an OK thing to do.”
She said strewn garbage takes away from the town’s beauty and improperly discarded plastics can break down and get into the water stream.
“As far as I know, it’s a problem in every town,” Houghton noted.
Diemand Bucci mentioned that about five years ago she came up with the idea to make the cleanup a weeklong event, which is more accommodating to participants’ schedules.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.