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t Croakerfests over the years, Garbology teams have mainly worked behind the scenes — and occasionally out in the open with artful forklift work — to keep things clean. This year, the Garbology team was bigger than ever and from their booth made a point of encouraging attendees to recycle both at the festival and at home. Croakerfest Garbology Coordinator Jayne Stasser sends this appreciation.

To the Editor:

I want to express my sincere appreciation to the 30 volunteers who helped with garbology this year. Not only did they keep the Croakerfest grounds clean, they also kept 17 bins of recyclable from going into the landfill.

Our garbology tent volunteers distributed recycling information and kept an eye on the trash bins to let the forklift crew know when it was a time for a trash run: Claudia Bemis, Nelda Coats, Tom Cochran, Cynthia Cochran, Vickie Conrad, Mary Duffie, Grace Evans, Kathryn Garcia, Enrique Garcia, Nancy Hiller, Ann Kellogg, Peggy King, Liz Lathrop, Tom Lathrop, Lynn Mattea, Wendy Osserman, Alice Petree, Nancy Piner, and Carol Small.

Kathryn and Enrique Garcia sport the Garbology t-shirts the team wore at Croakerfest. In addition to other tasks, volunteers worked a booth encouraging people to recycle. Winds on Saturday destroyed the booth’s tent. In keeping with the recycling message, Garbology Coordinator Jayne Stasser says it’s being repaired to be used again.

John Bloom was the forklift driver ably assisted by garbologists extraordinaire Maggie Monk, Jeff Potter, Andy Plaice, Tonya Plaice, and TJ Wooton.

Mary Ann Parham and Doug Sligh were the Friday night street cleanup crew.

The Sunday morning cleanup team was Tom Cochran, Cynthia Cochran, Lynn Mattea, Joe Mattea, Viviana Popperwill (our youngest volunteer who scampered onto the rocks to pick up trash so that it would not wash into the river!), Pat Stockwell, and Laurie Stockwell.

Of course our efforts were all made possible by the loan of the forklift from Village Hardware, and the inherited “Garbology Bin” from Greg Bohmert. Thanks also to Kip Nicholas for the use of her tent and the Town of Oriental for providing the trash and recycle bins.

It is not always a pretty job (Pat, did you know you would be spraying out trash bins when you volunteered?), but thanks to these remarkable volunteers it was a job well done. Another year of working to keep Croakerfest clean and green.

Jayne Stasser
Croakerfest Garbology Coordinator
China Grove
7/6/15

Editor:

Jayne Stasser has elevated my knowledge about recycling to an entirely new level, and I have been recycling since 1985.

This is a complex issue and compliance with the rules is very uneven. Thanks to Jayne I will no longer be making as many wrong decisions about what goes where. And I will be a better citizen.

All of us who love the planet are thankful we have people like Jayne and John in our community.

Doug Sligh
Oriental
7/7/15