North Main Street is one of those iconic New England roads. Classic stonewalls line the street, which starts on one end with views of fields and woods that give way to glimpses of the water on the other end.
It’s also a well-traveled street that gets a bit a dirty at times. So on a recent Saturday a group of about 40 North Main Street neighbors gathered to clean up the street.
“The amount of garbage we picked up was appalling,” Barbara Dixon said in an email.
Barbara and Chris Dixon helped organize the clean up. About 30 adults, including volunteers from the Avalonia Land Conservancy and about eight children most of whom live on North Main Street or on one of the surrounding streets spent the day clearing the street of branches including some leftover from Hurricane Sandy, and other debris.
According to local Rob Simmons they collected enough branches and garbage for about eight dump runs.
Simmons said that in addition to the branches they found more than 100 bottles, cans, plastic containers, buckets, a Frisbee, a rake head, a blue ball and two lobster pots.
“While individual clean up activities are common on North Main Street, we felt that a group effort was needed to assist the Town of Stonington Highway Department for the 'little stuff,’ Simmons said in an email. “We also felt it would stimulate individual home owners to take a greater interest in their walls and wood lots that adjoin North Main Street.”
The group effort included Simmons, Nick Kepple, Peter Freeman and Peter Harvey hauling the loads of debris to the dump, where the town kindly let them drop it of free of charge since they were helping the town.
And while Saturday was the first neighborhood clean up held in a long time, Dixon said the group consensus was to do it again.
“Perhaps by cleaning up the debris, we drew a bit of attention to the scenic beauty of North Main Street and maybe drivers will notice it’s a special road and stop talking and slow down.” Dixon said.
