Perhaps again

Last week the Hospital Foundation recognized Leo Finnegan’s tireless advocacy of the Picton hospital. Many readers will remember his unrelenting defence of the capacity and purpose of our community hospital. He rallied the community, filling community halls and buses, taking the fight to save Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital to Queen’s Park. Finnegan wielded Alan Capon’s book This House of Healing as a shield in the many pitched battles to push back cuts and restore services to this community. Thursday’s celebration was a long overdue tribute to a noble and quiet leader.

Not as well remembered was Finnegan’s formative role in Trash Bash.

The resurrected event has been aptly dubbed the Owen Jones Memorial Clean Up Day in honour of the man who spent many of his days tending to the litter, dust and grime on Picton’s Main Street. Jones became an icon of sorts—a reminder of the shared responsibility we have in keeping our community safe and tidy. Jones passed away last year, and so the return of Trash Bash seems a fitting tribute.

It is important, however, to recall the origins of Trash Bash, to remember just how massive the annual celebration of the County’s natural beauty became in the nottoo- distant past, and the folks who made it happen. Finnegan was there at the beginning.

It was three decades ago that Jack Christie challenged his friends and neighbours to tidy up a small part of the County. That first year, Christie was joined by Finnegan, former MP Lyle Vanclief and wife Sharon, Keith Taylor, and Ian Balsillie. Together they cleared about two kilometres of roadside ditches.

Finnegan understood that the effort had to scale up if they were to make a meaningful dent in the litter accumulated along the County’s thousand kilometres of roads. Finnegan, along with Taylor, Judy Pulhus and others, formed the Prince Edward Round Table on the Economy and Environment as a means to generate greater awareness and sensitivity of the impact of commercial activity upon the natural beauty of the County and the heritage bestowed upon every resident. The leading activity of the group was nurturing the nascent Trash Bash.

It became a very big thing.

Finnegan had been elected mayor by 2004 and, as such, had a larger platform to promote and nurture Trash Bash. The spring clean-up event was growing in popularity every year, becoming a fixture on the community calendar each April.

By 2005 more than 900 residents were fanning out on Trash Bash day, covering more than 600 kilometres to pick up roadside trash. Sometimes it rained. Sometimes it was chilly. It made no difference. Residents came out in droves—families, service groups, church folks, professional organizations. Wellington on the Lake always produced a large contingent of folks armed with gloves, good boots, garbage bags and goodwill.

Council members challenged themselves to collect pop cans. They had persuaded Alcan to make a contribution to Habitat for Humanity based on their haul of aluminum. No one expected they would gather more than 28,000 cans that spring day in 2005.

A decade later, however, a wave of risk aversion swept over Shire Hall. Insurance underwriters had persuaded County leadership that the liability risk of this and other volunteer activities was simply too great.

By 2015 Trash Bash was gone. A generation of volunteers simply put down their tools and went home. But the idea didn’t die.

It was too vital. The spirit and goodwill the event inspired were too great to be squelched for long. Soon enough, fresh new shoots began to emerge. A new generation began to ask how to resurrect the spring clean event.

Spearheaded by Evan Nash at Wellington Home Hardware along with his colleagues at Picton Home Hardware, a small group organized and sponsored a revival of the spring clean event last year. The County’s Chief Administrative Officer Marcia Wallace coordinated the County’s renewed participation in the event, signalling an important shift inside Shire Hall.

Last year’s event proved the idea was durable and the goodwill infectious.

So Trash Bash is back—rather, the Owen Jones Memorial Clean Up Day is here. It may yet become an important spring ritual in the County again.

So on Saturday, April 23, please consider joining your neighbours in the tidying of Prince Edward County. You can register online at thecounty.ca or by calling Wellington Home Hardware at 613.399.3203.

Trash collected may be dropped off at the Midtown Brewing parking lot in Wellington, Picton Home Hardware, behind the town halls in Ameliasburgh and Milford.

Do it to honour Owen Jones. Or Leo Finnegan. Or the place you call home.

rick@wellingontimes.ca