Pictured: Volunteers Petra, Eoin, Claire, Janice and Claire help with the tidy up.
Ringsend and Irishtown’s quest for a Tidy Town award continued in earnest on September 17th, when over 90 volunteers took to the streets for the community’s second Clean Up day. Members and traders from the area, along with representatives from Serve the City, AIB and Deloitte Ireland, assembled at the Fair Play Cafe on York Road at 9.30am.
The sequel to July 3rd’s inaugural clean-up was a far longer event, with the group working all the way up to 5pm, with lunch at the Fair Play sandwiched in between!
Sueann Moore provided the volunteers with a health and safety talk, pointing out the various medical facilities available in the area. Participants would spend the morning focussing on cleaning, with the afternoon emphasis being on painting and planting in areas deemed appropriate. The drop-off point for rubbish was at the meeting point between Barrow Street and Ringsend Road. Sueann also invited people to take photos and share them, and elaborated on how the Clean Up would help to bring the locals and corporate representatives together.
There were around 90 volunteers overall, with 45 of them coming from Deloitte, and NewsFour managed to grab a brief chat with Deloitte’s Claire Bergin, Assistant Manager for Corporate Responsibility.
“Today is our volunteer day,” Claire said. “We have 25 projects across the city; we call it our Impact Day, and we made contact with Shay about the Clean Up.”
The monolithic crowd was split into seven different groups for the day, with Ringsend and Irishtown split into specific cleaning zones with groups appointed team leaders. Team 1’s area was South Lotts, with Team 2 catering to Stella Gardens. Team 3 set up shop on the left hand side of Irishtown Road, with Shay Connolly and Sueann Moore leading Team 4 around the main Ringsend area. Teams 5, 6 and 7 took Ringsend Park, Kerlogue and Bremen and the area surrounding the Ringsend Recycling Centre respectively.
By Craig Kinsella
