Here’s To Steady Eddies: Remarkable People – I Love My Park Day in Yonkers, 2024

Meet Barbara and Larry Fasman, who have cleared tires and worse from Tibbetts Brook Park and the Aqueduct Trail for 3 years in a row. .. and they don’t even live in Yonkers. Cleanup organizer Norma Silva, in center, was awed by their persistence! Barbara knows her trash: note the safety glasses!

Larry found trash bags from an apartment building, 585 McLean Avenue. He hauled them to the Aqueduct Trail, then the marvelous Green Team of teens walked the bags up the trail to the main roadway. Eventually, Yonkers Dept. of Public Works picked up the whole sorry collection …. even the new squash racket Larry found.

Shanae Williams and Corazon Pineda Isaac also come every year. Shanae and Corazon are fed up with the regular dumping inside Yonkers parks! Here are Green Team teens with Yonkers Councilwoman Pineda Isaac (middle row blue shirt), and Ms. Williams (bottom right), who serves on the County Board of Legislators.

Here’s our total haul.

The Green Team is a dream-come-true when the hauling gets too heavy! These high schoolers, trained and employed by Groundwork Hudson Valley, cracked jokes and worked nonstop. They show up every year too.

Maybe we will catch and fine the medical waste haulers, lazy apartment superintendents, tire vendors and contractors who treat public parks as a dump site. The solution is obvious – street lamps and a camera at the site. We’ve tried for almost 2 years but nothing happens, except more dumping at the same site.

Here’s to persistence! Thank you volunteers!