Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Portales to pick up its trash

MIchelle Seeber

Clean and Beautiful.

That’s how organizers of the Clean and Beautiful Committee want Portales to look by the end of the day Saturday.

Veda Urioste, Clean and Beautiful coordinator and the city’s administrative assistant, said she is calling on volunteers from throughout Portales to participate in the city-wide trash cleanup that day.

Groups of volunteers should meet between 8 and 9 a.m. Saturday at the Memorial Building on the corner of Abilene and 7th Street, as a starting point.

Members of the Clean and Beautiful Committee will provide them with different routes to follow, depending on the size of the groups, Urioste said.

“Some places along the highway are bigger, longer areas to clean,” she said. “Those areas will be given to the biggest groups.”

The day is part of a statewide cleanup campaign, she said.

“(Eastern New Mexico) University is getting involved in this,” Urioste said. “There is a cleanup like this every year. The date the state set was April 24, but (officials) asked anyone involved in the Clean and Beautiful Program to have the day during the month of April.”

Trash bags and pairs of gloves will be furnished by the Clean and Beautiful Committee, she said.

“We will have T-shirts,” she said. “After the cleanup, hotdogs will be served at the Memorial Building. We will be giving out certificates to show our appreciation. We also will hold a scavenger hunt and give cash prizes to the group that collects the most amount of trash and to the largest group.”

Urioste said the day is only one of two clean-up days held each year in Portales.

The second one, The Trash Walk, is held in October, she said.

“It’s our trash, and we should be the ones responsible for cleaning it up,” she said of the upcoming Saturday event. “This will cover all of Portales.”

Urioste recommended people dress warmly in case of cool weather.

“Last year, I think we had a little rain,” she said, “but it turned out to be a really nice day.”

Diane Parker, co-chairman of the Clean and Beautiful Committee in Portales, said the day is considered a kick-off day for spring cleaning.

“Portales is a really neat community,” Parker said. “Unfortunately, we have a lot of trash. We’re even encouraging students at the schools to go out and clean up trash on their campuses. And we’re encouraging everyone to get out in their neighborhoods to pick up trash.

The hotdogs served at the end of the day will be donated by local merchants, Parker said.

“If you can just come out and pick up a couple of bags of trash, that would make us happy,” Parker said. “We would love for people who adopt a highway to pick up trash on their mile.”