Community Cleanup Day On Tap In Vernon Next Week

VERNON, CT — The Vernon Rocks Coalition, the Rockville Public Library and the Vernon Cultural District Commission are hosting a community cleanup day at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in downtown Rockville.

All are welcome to join the cleanup and to enjoy free pizza and water.

The idea for Tuesday’s event grew out of the Vernon Go Green event earlier this year, officials said. A community cleanup was supposed to be part of that event, but was rained out, library director Jennifer Johnston-Marius said.

Cassandra Schend of the Vernon Rocks Coalition suggested scheduling another community cleanup to focus on nip bottles, cigarette butts and other trash with the goal of helping young people become more aware of the prevalence of substance abuse, Johnston-Marius said.

"The goal is to not only to clean up these items, but to make them less visible to young people in our community,”" Schend said. "From the substance use prevention perspective, we know the more exposure young people have to these products, the more it normalizes use for them."

Mayor Dan Champagne said anything anyone does to help keep Vernon beautiful is worthwhile.

"We have an ongoing cleanup campaign through our Nip Responsibly initiative and the folks at Opportunity Works and the Boy Scouts of Troop 2020 do an outstanding job with that," Mayor Champagne said. “Unfortunately, littering continues to be a problem across our community. I am grateful for the efforts of these volunteers to help us address both litter and substance abuse."

To encourage people to join in the cleanup effort, there will be free pizza and water.

People are asked to register for the event so that organizers can order enough pizza for everyone.

"Come have some pizza and help us cleanup downtown," Johnson-Marius said.

To sign up, click here.