Let’s talk trash—trash and junk dumped on vacant lots without knowledge of the owner. It’s not uncommon in Bandera County for empty lots to be used as dumping sites. Here’s a case of one from just last week.
Adelina Castro, age 77 and recently widowed, owns a lot on Georgia Avenue in Lakehills. She was notified by concerned neighbors that someone had disposed of a dilapidated travel trailer on her lot. The Castros did not have the means to hire someone to break it down and haul it off to the dump.
Here’s where the neighbors stepped in to help. Ellinora, Esther an Ezra Groot are members of Pipe Creek/Lakehills 4-H Club. With help from their parents, Ace and Renee, the illegal dump became a project. The club raised the funds to buy supplies.
One of the parents brought a tractor with a front-end loader and trailer, another brought a second trailer to haul the trash. They asked County Commissioner Greg Grothues to waive dumping fees.
On a recent Saturday, seventeen youths and twelve adults descended on the lot to clean it up. Adelena and son Jose pitched in to help.
“I really appreciated all the kids coming out. We could not have done it without them,” said Adelina. The club finished it off with a hot-dog roast, sodas and popsicles.
The 4-H Club set an example of what may be accomplished with citizen action in rural areas lacking trash clearing services.
For the past three years, DON’T MAKE WASTE BANDERA (DMWB) has collaborated with the Silver Sage’s Meals on Wheels program in a Yards Project, a program to clear yards for elderly and disabled residents. They removed trash accumulating in three Lakehills yards and cleared twenty yards in the Wharton’s Dock area. The Groot family had participated in one of these cleanups for a meals-on-wheels client in the Lakehills area.
Local government, business and non-profit groups met on April 7th to plan future cleanups in the Yards Project. A key requirement is that the residents themselves participate in the cleanup, recycle and maintain the property thereafter. The plan is to find the funds, local equipment and volunteer labor to help those without the means to clear trash buildup. In the process, the local norms with respect to trash are transformed.
If you have a group interested in participating as volunteers or contributing to the effort, send an email to [email protected] , subject as “Yards Project.” To learn more about the Yards Project, visit their DON’T MAKE WASTE BANDERA website (DMWB.net) or Bandera Recycles on Facebook.
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