Local volunteers gathered Saturday to provide a Day of Service in honor of the city’s 100th anniversary. The Centennial Clean-up included faith-based groups as well as volunteers from offices of elected officials and the city itself.
Working throughout the morning, crews conducted a major clean-up of Otis Ave. between Brokaw Ave. and Orange Ave., tackled a huge project on East Whitley Ave., and beautified the downtown area. Once the work was done, they met in fellowship for a barbecue lunch at Father Wyatt Park. Approximately 50 people from the Community Church of the Nazarene, Harvest Community Baptist Church the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and Resurrection Ministries participated. The city had several individual volunteers from public works and other departments, Senator Andy Vidak’s office and Assemblyman Rudy Salas also sent volunteers to help. We wouldn’t have missed it,” said Paula Vinzant, district director for Vidak. “We are pleased to help Corcoran celebrate its centennial.”
Vinzant joined others who were busy weeding, clearing and planting new flowers in the downtown landscaping.
Others picked up trash all along Otis Ave., tangled in and near the oleander trees that provide a buffer between the road and the rail tracks. In addition to tackling the debris, crews also helped clean-up the trees themselves, many of which are showing signs of stress from lack of water.
Perhaps the biggest project of the day saw yet another group cleaning empty lots on the north side of E. Whitley Ave. concrete foundations were removed, shrubbery cleared and dead and dying trees were taken down. The property is owned by the city.
“We would like to see that property developed some day,” noted City Councilman Mark Cartwright. “It will certainly show much better to potential developers in the future.” Once the area was completely cleaned, heavy equipment was used to level the ground. Equipment was loaned for the effort from the J.G. Boswell Company and from Jerry’s Self Storage and Equipment Rental.
The project was Cartwright’s brain-child and he would like to see the effort continue.
We hope to make this an annual event. We had volunteers from four different churches this year and we think we can have even more people from more of Corcoran’s churches next year,” he stated.
