Our Community in Fairfax County, Virginia

On 31 March, Joe Comé, Tom Tauber, Barbara Freggens, Kathy & Dave Conway, and several cub scouts and their parents helped clean up the trash along Tripp's Run.  We worked behind the McDonald's and the north bank near Annandale Road, filling over 30 trash bags in just two hours.

The business owners who own the land on either side of Tripp's Run—Bill Page and McDonald's—do not maintain this property.  We found a lot of beer bottles and blown trash, as well as some unique items like a muffler, sofa, and bicycle.  Unless the community pitches in to clean up this litter, it just becomes a bigger mess over time.

If you walk south from the Westlawn Shopping Center and cross the Annandale Road bridge over Tripp's Run, you'll see a house on the right with a large grassy area.  Much of that grassy area is owned by Bill Page, not the homeowner.  The people living in the house are kind enough to mow the grass, but they really are not responsible for picking up trash that is on Bill Page's property.  With the help of some neighbors from the east side of Annandale Road, we cleaned up the mess.

On 5 May, Kathy and I also helped out with the Adopt-A-Highway cleanup along Route 50.  With just two of us from Westlawn, we still were able to clean up the south side of Route 50 between Annandale and Wayne Roads.  With just a few more people to help, we could cut the time down to one hour.  One hour twice a year on Saturday mornings is not a lot of time, yet it would go a long way to keeping our community clean.

If you are interested in helping the neighborhood out besides keeping your own property in good shape, you have a number of options that don't involve much time: delivering these newsletters four times a year, Adopt-A-Highway cleanup in the spring and fall, and cleaning up Tripp's Run every spring.  Also, Neighborhood Watch can take as much or as little time as you want to give.  Please take advantage of one or more of these opportunities to make a positive difference in our community.

If you can, please help out with the Adopt-A-Highway clean-up along Route 50 on Saturday, 1 May 2004.  We are planning to head out at 9:00 a.m. for about an hour, and orange vests and trash bags will be provided.  Please call Dave Conway at 703-237-8572 if you are interested-we need your help!  Teenagers are welcome, as this activity counts towards community service time.

We need about an hour or so of your time to help clean up the area along the side of Route 50 in our area.

The next clean up is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, 12 October at 9:00 a.m.  Last spring, three of us from Westlawn helped out volunteers from the Knox Presbyterian Church to clean up litter along Route 50 between the church and the Quality Inn.  This time, with the help of a few more people, we can get the job done in as little as an hour!

Volunteers will work in pairs, and the Adopt-A-Highway coordinator will provide orange vests and orange trash bags.  Most of the work involves picking up trash in the grassy area along both sides of the road.

If you can help, please arrive at the parking lot behind Knox Presbyterian around 8:45 am.  It shouldn't be too hot, and an hour of picking up trash goes by fast.  Thanks in advance to all those who can make the effort to help keep our neighborhood clean!

Three of us from Westlawn helped out volunteers from the Knox Presbyterian Church to clean up litter along Route 50 between the church and the Quality Inn.  If you saw orange trash bags along the road on 1 June, those were ours!

With only nine people total, it took us a full two hours to clean up the road.  We worked in pairs, and the Adopt-A-Highway coordinator provided orange vests and orange trash bags.

While it was too much work to try and pick up cigarette butts, we did try to pick up any trash that was plastic, metal, wood, and most paper.  For example, I picked up a lot of candy wrappers along the segment just east of Annandale Road, including dozens from IHOP.

We picked up a lot of debris from busted headlights at the intersection in front of MacDonald's.  These were the pieces too small to be swept up after the many accidents there, or they were too small to be noticed in the grass.  We were surprised to see almost as much car accident debris at the intersection with Westmoreland Road.  You don't see the same problems at the busy intersection at Wayne Road, but that intersection doesn't have a third eastbound lane with traffic often backed up in the other two lanes.

The next clean up is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, 6 October at 9:00 a.m.  If we can get just seven more volunteers from Westlawn and Broyhill Park, we could finish the job in a little over an hour.  Stay tuned for more information in our September newsletter.

Want to help keep our streets free of litter?  Come help out with the spring clean-up along Route 50 between Jaguar Trail and a little east of Annandale Road.  Knox Presbyterian Church has adopted this segment of Route 50 as part of Virginia's Adopt-A-Highway program.  Neighborhood volunteers are welcome, and the more who help, the faster the cleanup goes.

Meet a little before 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, 1 June 2002 in the parking lot behind Knox Presbyterian.  You should bring comfortable shoes, a hat, suntan lotion, and a water bottle.  The program coordinator will divide us up into small groups and provide orange plastic vests and trash bags.

Each group will be responsible for a segment of Route 50, and cleanup will end no later than 11:00 a.m.  We leave the trash bags along the side of the road, and we don't pick up trash too big to fit into the bags.  If you have any questions, please call me on 703-237-8572.  Mark your calendars now!