It is not beneath me to make a mad dash across major roadways like Route 119 in pursuit of the good acts of Rindge folk to share about in this column (looking both ways first, of course). Just ask my new friends, Kathy and Steve Gray.
I had been out in my yard picking up white pine storm debris recently when I saw the Grays walking on the other side of Route 119 at Wellington Road. They were wearing roadside safety vests and carrying the signature blue trash bags commonly seen around town during April – the same blue trash bags I had been discussing with Sarah Dengler at Ingalls Memorial Library over in Rindge that very morning.
Dengler, a longtime member of the Rindge Woman’s Club, took me back to the early nineties when the club partnered with the town’s Garden Group to organize an Earth Day celebration. Woman’s club member Linda Tower also supplied a written history of the club’s development of the Earth Day tradition. Then-members Janet Shepherd, Elinor Cole, Peg Brummer, Jean White and Peg Lopata were some of the women involved in the beginnings of our town’s annual cleanup event.
These women, along with others from the Rindge Woman’s Club, decided to pledge $500 toward funding its expenses, which included roadside cleanup bags and cash prizes for participants picking up litter.
“In those early days, we would ‘hide’ several Quaker Oats containers with money – $5, I think – to be found by people cleaning up the roadsides, but they were not always found so that system was abandoned,” Dengler recalled.
Today, more than 30 years after its initial Earth Day observance, the Rindge Woman’s Club still incentivizes and rewards participation in their townwide cleanup. This year, every blue bag filled with trash picked from the ground in Rindge will earn participants a raffle ticket for $50 cash prizes – two for adults and two for children.
However, before trash can be collected and prizes can be awarded, those famous blue bags must be secured, delivered to Rindge, rolled up with a printout detailing the process and distributed to citizens.
Dengler explained to me that the blue bags are paid for and provided by New Hampshire the Beautiful, a nonprofit supported by NH Soft Drink Association, the Beverage Distributors of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Grocers Association. The Northeast Resource Recovery Association houses the bags and distributes them to the woman’s club on behalf of New Hampshire the Beautiful. This year, the woman’s club has been given 750 bags for trash pickup in our town.
State Rep. John Hunt volunteers to makes the trip to Epsom each year to retrieve the bags and bring them to our town. And as for rolling each individual bag, well, that’s done by volunteers here in town.
And as for rolling each individual bag, well, that’s done by a number volunteers here in town.
“We take a number of bags to help with the rolling,” the Grays had told me after I’d caught up with them on Wellington Road. In fact, Steve has fashioned a system of using his power drill to roll the bags along with the paper insert for increased efficiency.
By the time I had met up with the Grays, they’d already filled four bags of trash from Wellington Road. We shared stories of the array of items we’ve found in our roadside litter pickups, including tires and other car parts, endless food and drink trash and even entire bags of garbage. Dengler’s yearly notes kept on the Earth Day cleanup events include listings of unusual finds by community members: VCRs, lawn chairs, the bumper of an auto and even a cull of about 60 tires once!
This year, the woman’s club has adjusted the schedule to allow Rindge residents extra time to clean up roadsides using the blue bags.
Blue bags are available at Ingalls Memorial Library, the town office, post office, Meetinghouse, Recreation Center, TD Bank and Edward Jones.
“Volunteers from the Rindge Woman’s Club and the Chamber of Commerce will hand out bags at the transfer station on Saturday April 22, and will be back at the transfer station on Saturday, April 29, from 8 a.m. to noon to collect blue bags and hand out raffle tickets for those cash prizes!” Dengler said.
Additionally, all fourth- and fifth-graders at Rindge Memorial School will be given a bag. My youngest and I enjoyed a roadside stroll, equipped with our trash-picking gloves, and easily filled a blue bag we had left over from last April.
Thank you to the Rindge Woman’s Club and the Rindge Chamber of Commerce for their work in organizing this event. And thank you to good folks like Kathy and Steve Gray for keeping our town looking good.
Please consider picking up a few bags to fill with roadside litter and trash. Together we can clean up our roads and brighten our community!
For information, visit rindgewomansclub.org/events.html.
Scholarship opportunity
MilliporeSigma of Jaffrey and The Jaffrey-Rindge MLK Committee are offering the MilliporeSigma-MLK Student Service Scholarships, which will provide two graduating seniors who reside in Jaffrey or Rindge with a $1,500 scholarship for further education.
All 2023 Jaffrey and Rindge graduating seniors are eligible, including public school, private school and homeschooled students. Applications are available at the Conant High School guidance department, the Ingalls Memorial and Jaffrey Public libraries and on the MLK Celebration Jaffrey-Rindge MLK Facebook page. Applications are also available at regional charter and private schools.
The application deadline is April 21.
To share your stories, contact me at rindgecommcorr@yahoo.com.