Spring is just around the corner, and it’s time to start making plans to give Mother Nature a hand with her spectacular spring show by sprucing up Highlands and her highways.
The Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC invites everyone to take part in its annual Plateau Pickup Day and help with the longstanding tradition of cleaning litter along the routes leading to Highlands and specific spots in town.
Plateau Pickup is set for Saturday, April 18. Groups, families and individuals will gather at 8:30 A.M. at Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park (Pine Street) to check in and receive clean up assignments along key corridors including U.S. 64, N.C. 28, N.C. 106, and select areas of downtown Highlands.
All supplies will be provided, including a light breakfast, safety vest, gloves, pick-up tools and garbage bags. After the cleanup, volunteers are invited back to the park for a thank-you t-shirt and boxed lunch at noon.
“Plateau Pickup is one of those days that brings out the very best in Highlands,” said Johanna Fein, executive director of the Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC. “This year, we’re proud to be part of the Greatest American Cleanup, working together to make our community cleaner, greener, and more beautiful as we look ahead to America’s 250th celebration.”
Plateau Pickup Day began over 30 years ago when members of the Mirror Lake Homeowners Association banded together for a Gorge Road cleanup day. Each year after that, they spent one Saturday every spring picking up litter on this scenic drive. Each year word spread and more and more volunteers joined the effort.
Soon the event was so successful and well-established that association members gave control of the day to the Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC, which carried on the tradition.
(Editor’s Note: This event becomes even more fun when you consider it an exotic scavenger hunt. When my son Alex was in the first grade, he won an award from the Chamber of Commerce for Most Unusual Collection – A 1985 Honda RBC Inlet Manifold, a set of swimming goggles, a can of Olympia Beer (pretty exotic for these parts) and two pairs of women’s underpants. Even more important for Alex, he got to ride in the back of a pickup truck with Buck Trott, known to every kid at Highlands School as Santa Claus.)
Favorites Count: 0