An estimated 700 volunteers showed up for the cleanup of the Red Clay Creek area in Pennsylvania and Delaware. There were three staging areas for the volunteers, one at the Ashland Nature Center in Hockessin, another at the Kennett YMCA outdoor swimming pool, and the third at Anson B. Nixon Park in Kennett Square.

The Brandywine Red Clay Alliance organized the cleanup. Alliance Executive Director Jim Jordan said 600 people preregistered, but at least 100 more showed up early Saturday, March 26, the cleanup day.

“Today is about cleaning up the environment,” Jordan said. “Everyone wants to know what they can do to help the environment, to help their environment locally. And the Red Clay Valley Cleanup is a big part of that.”

That entails a lot of people with little experience picking up trash along the waterways and the adjacent roads. Removing trash from roadways along the creek is important because “What gets thrown out along the road, it ends up in the stream.”

Jordan said that among the hundreds of volunteers are school groups, National Honor Society members, environmental groups, Cub Scouts, and just everyday people who want to keep the area clean.

There’s an educational aspect to the event, and that education stays with people.

“Children are learning the importance of not littering. That’s a great thing. We had people come today who have been doing this for 20 years, since they were 4 or 5 years old, and we see them bringing their kids,” Jordan said.

The Red Clay Creek runs roughly 19 miles from the Kennett Square area in Pennsylvania to Stanton, Del., at the confluence of the Red and White Clay creeks. Kennett has two stream heads, with one part of the Red Clay beginning near Longwood Gardens and the other in the Unionville area. Their confluence, Jordan said, is at the Marshall Bridge on Route 82 in Kennett Township. It flows down through Yorklyn and Ashland, then under Kirkwood Highway and down into Stanton.

Other road and creek cleanups are scheduled for April. The Brandywine Conservancy has a Brandywine Creek cleanup scheduled for Saturday, April 23, and the Chadds Ford Residence Association has a road cleanup set for the same day, April 23.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.

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