‘Operation Beautification’ Draws 30 Volunteers to Downtown Sedalia

About 30 volunteers converged on the downtown Sedalia area last Saturday morning to help clean up as part of an Operation Beautification program initiated by Sedalia Main Streets.

Sedalia Main Streets Director Sara Orr deemed the program a success.

“We have been taking care of parking lots, alleyways, we’ve done so much weed pulling. We’ve had a lot of weed eaters going around, a lot of leaf blowers and a lot of compost bags,” Orr said.

Sedalia Main Streets

“I’ve seen a lot of trash and weeds being picked up today,” she noted.

She said that volunteers were “picking up the slack a little bit, especially here on the north end (of downtown) so I’d like to make this a twice a year event – maybe early spring and late summer.”

Orr added that she was excited to see everyone working around the downtown area to help make it beautiful. Each volunteer signed up on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse when they arrived.

Sedalia Main Streets supplied the trash bags and most of the supplies. In addition, “We’ve been able to pull some supplies from the City. We’ve had volunteers bring trash bags in. David Esser with Helping Hands, he brought a whole crew of people with compost bags – that’s definitely been a huge help today,” Orr told KSIS.

One weed eater that was used Saturday came from Essers house, another came from Orr’s house.  And another came from the City’s maintenance building “that I had permission to take. Everybody’s just brought something along with them.”

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CBO Dimitrious Maduro was the chef on duty behind the Furnell Building Saturday, where the 30-member crew gathered for lunch around 11 a.m.

The hot dogs, hamburgers, chips & drinks were purchased the day before the event by Sedalia Main Streets.

The lunch served as a ‘thank you’ to the volunteers who donated their time and energy, Orr noted.

She added that she plans to post before & after pictures on Sedalia Main Streets’ facebook page.

One of the volunteers, Linda Sunday, stressed that “when individuals say ‘they’ should do something else, you need to become part of the ‘they’ and do something.”

“Tom” was also one of the volunteers and he credited Mr. Esser for being a great crew leader.

“We covered about 2 ½ blocks and picked up five bags and maybe more of nothing but leaves and trash and brush. So we did good, and we imagined the other groups did just as well,” he told KSIS.