A squeaky-clean thanks to the Minneapolis Parks Foundation volunteers who joined up with friends and family to support the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s 2012 Earth Day Clean Up at our Water Works/Fuji-Ya site, Saturday, June 21.

More than two dozen adults and children collected as many bags (or more) of trash and recyclables from a nearly mile-long length of the Mississippi central riverfront stretching from the Mill City Museum to under the Hennepin Avenue Bridge (that was quite a sight, believe me!). Volunteers were rewarded with the satisfaction of a cleaner-than-before landscape, a sense of contributing and connecting to the community, plus Minne Frisbees® and – yum! – sugar cookies from A Baker’s Wife.

Our Water Works event was part of a city-wide effort organized by Minneapolis Parks, during which 2,000 volunteers at more than 40 sites throughout Minneapolis removed just over 9,000 lbs of trash from neighborhoods.