Rend Lake Cleanup 2009 a Tremendous Success
On Saturday, September 26, 2009, over 450 volunteer from throughout southern Illinois and beyond participated in the 23rd
annual Rend Lake Cleanup. The event is sponsored annually by the US Army Corps of Engineers at Rend Lake, and for the past fifteen years the event has helped to celebrate National Public Lands Day.
The Rend Lake Cleanup event is made possible by support of numerous local businesses and organizations who provide financial and product donations for the event. This year's Rend Lake Cleanup sponsors included:
- Kiwanis Club of Benton- Thank you Kiwanis for a great lunch for the volunteers!
- Wal Mart Super Store Benton
- Bank of Whittington
- Pepsi Mid America Marion
- Continental Tire of Mt. Vernon
- Bombardier
- Recreational Products of Benton
- Weeks Chevrolet
- Ace Hardware Benton
- Southern Illinois Bank
- Dixie Cream of West Frankfort
- Wiggs Bicycle of Benton
- Custom Enterprises of Benton- what cool T-shirts!
- Town and Country True Value Benton
Thank you to all of these wonderful sponsors for helping to beautify our region and showing their support for this altruistic event. If you visit these companies please tell them you appreciate their support for the Rend Lake Cleanup.
As has become customary for this annual event, volunteers come from local youth groups such as Boy, Cub, Brownie and Girl Scouts, College students from Rend Lake College & Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Geography Club and Saluki Heritage Interpreters), families, company teams, church groups and many individual volunteers.
Registration began at 8 a.m. Volunteers were assigned specific areas to clean up, provided safety instructions and supplies and headed out to make a difference in beautifying Rend Lake. As you will see in the photos below, the volunteers had a great time and clearly picked up a great deal of litter. Much of the litter was sorted to separate recyclables from the trash.
At the end of a morning of picking up litter, volunteers gathered at the beautiful Rend Lake Visitor's Center where they enjoyed a free lunch and drinks. Volunteers also picked up their very stylish Rend Lake Cleanup T-shirts. The event ended with numerous door prizes being awarded thanks to the generous donations of the event sponsors noted above.
