ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Community members gathered on Rockford’s east side this morning to do a little spring cleaning.
“Nobody should be ever feel like they’re forgotten. Right. And this is not a forgotten part of Rockford,” said Community Clean-Up Event Leader Shimere Love. “This is a place that we have eyes on.”
Dozens of volunteers met at Mama Lisa’s Groceries off Broadway for a community clean-up event. Love organized the event as a volunteer project for the Rockford-based nonprofit Women & Health.
“It’s not fair for children to have to kick over liquor bottles and step over drug paraphernalia just to go to the bus stop or walk to school,” said Love.
Zsazsa Johnson was born and raised on the city’s east side, she said she wants the next generation of kids to have the same opportunities she had.
“I know us growing up, we had the opportunity to ride bikes and didn’t have to think about running over a liquor bottle,” said Johnson. “So we wanted to be a big piece of that to make sure as we are steadily moving into the summertime. We can get the people to understand how important it is to come over here to support and help.”
Volunteers combed the nearby blocks, and Johnson is happy to report they exceeded their goals.
“I’m even more happy the fact that we had a limit and we said, hey, we’re we’re going to stop over at the train tracks by eighth and 11th Street,” said Johnson. “And we just kept going So the more we got excited, the more we seen that, the more we seen people coming out of their homes, we were able to get them involved.”
Johnson said it means a lot to have people from the community working to improve it.
“When you see that it is more than just making you feel good because for that moment they’re like, Man, wow, somebody actually thought about us,” said Johnson. “It’s not just about the community, which is people. We just people that live here that just want to just want to help out. And I think for them, that’s a huge support.”
They are not planning to stop the momentum anytime soon.
“It started off just like a volunteer project for that one time as an assignment,” said Love. “But I truly believe this is the first of many.”
