FARMINGTON — Over fifty people chipped in to help the Farmington Public Library clean up downtown Farmington on Monday, April 22, in honor of Earth Day. With sign-ups and a small petting zoo outside of The Pierce House at 204 Main Street, Library Director Jessica Casey called the eleventh annual volunteer clean-up a success.

The turnout was lighter than previous years, with Casey sharing that last year’s event saw almost 70 people volunteer to clean up trash in the area. This year only saw roughly 50 volunteers, which Casey attributed to Earth Day falling on a school day this year.

In previous years, Earth Day typically occurred during the school district’s April vacation, which allowed for more youth to volunteer.

Still, Downtown Farmington saw a big turnout with volunteers walking in and around the area to find whatever trash had been laying in the streets or out in the nearby woods.

Registration took place at The Pierce House on Main Street, where volunteers also dropped off their trash to be collected by the Farmington Public Works Department. By the end of the two hours, there was enough trash that it required two trips just to get it all to the Transfer Station.

The Farmington Public Works Department also coordinated and set up a small petting zoo for volunteers to check out before or after gathering trash. Goats, ducks, rabbits and even a chicken sat comfortably in their pens while volunteers took turns petting and feeding them.

This year marks the eleventh annual volunteer clean-up event, which began in 2013 with Jody Bean Palmer.

At the time, Palmer, a Mt. Blue High School alumnus had recently moved back to Farmington after living in Cape Cod for several years. She was a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington, but she attended before a degree path for environmental sciences was put into place. Instead, she worked on an interdisciplinary major with chemistry, biology, and geology.

“I kind of threw it together, because I knew that was the area of interest for me,” she said.

Palmer recalled her parents weren’t “strong environmentalists” and her upbringing was a very traditional one. She credits her interest to the generation of activists who brought her attention, and many others to pertinent environmental issues.

“During the period of time I was growing up, it was a big deal,” she shared, referencing the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act as examples of how attitudes towards environmentalism were changing.

“Those things happened because people cared,” she added.

“I have grandkids,” she continued. “So, you want to set the example. ‘If you don’t like something, quit complaining and do something about it’, you know. Hopefully, we get other people to realize it’s not daunting. We do have really big planetary problems, but just the simple action of doing something about it can make all the difference and that’s what we did in the 60s and 70s.”

Before Palmer and her husband rolled into Farmington more than ten years ago, they had already done a fair bit of cleaning up living in Cape Cod with the volunteer community there. Upon arrival in Farmington, one of her first goals was to set up a clean-up group to help with litter in the area.

Her efforts first began with Paul Mills and the Farmington Downtown Association. Palmer approached the Farmington Downtown Association with her interest in setting up an Earth Day clean-up event, which it approved. She got a small amount of money to purchase gloves and trash bags, and she was underway.

As time went on, more and more people got involved with the Earth Day clean-up event, and eventually Palmer stepped away and gave the reigns of the project to Casey.

“I’m not always here every winter,” Palmer shared. “So, I was looking around for someone who could be a stable person if I’m not here.”

Since then, Casey has spearheaded the Earth Day volunteer clean-up event with Palmer assisting in any way that she can, such as poster distribution and securing donations from local businesses for prizes for the volunteers.

Volunteers had the chance to win prizes based on how much litter they picked up [as a group and as an individual], who was the happiest clean-up group, the oddest piece of litter collected and who was the most adventurous in the clean-up efforts.

Prizes were donated from Dunkin’ Donuts; Renys; Devaney, Doak and Garrett Booksellers; Twice Sold Tales and The Orange Cat Cafe. The award for “Happiest Clean Up Volunteers” went to the members of University Credit Union, while the award for “Oddest Litter” went to members of Bangor Savings Bank for an odd assortment of scrap metal that was found.

The award for “Most Adventurous” went to Haley Salman, Izzy Henwood, Sean Wick, and Robert Campbell, who trekked through the brook behind Hippach Field to pick up the litter. Alyson Pelletier and Bradd Gustafson collected the most trash, earning them the group award, while Magnus Sibley flew solo to collect the most litter as an individual.

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