It
remains the best volunteer gig in town: a free canoe ride down
the river, along with a complimentary breakfast, fried chicken
lunch and all the garbage bags you can fill. Headwaters Outfitters
in Rosman wants you to join the fun during their spring French
Broad River Clean-Up on Saturday, May 21.
Since its inception in 1992, the bi-annual river clean-up has netted more than 2,900 garbage bags, 4,500 old tires and roughly 13 additional tons of trash along the upper French Broad. Over 2,500 volunteers have participated in the event, many of them returning year after year.
“We have a core of veteran volunteers who show up for every clean-up, people like Gaye and Joe Owen, Hub and Kathi Powell, Camille and Donald Ziegler, Jay and Ann Hinze,” said Hobbs. “But we always welcome newcomers. Last year, we had quite a few first-timers from Brevard High and some Boy Scouts who’d never been before.”
Volunteers
who show up at Headwaters at 8:30 a.m. will be treated to a
light breakfast before being shuttled to a launching area in
Rosman, where everyone will be assigned canoes, paddles, life
jackets, and garbage bags. Hobbs said participants should bring
sturdy gloves, river shoes and tools such as long-handled barbecue
tongs. “That way they don’t get their arms ripped up trying
to get plastic grocery bags out of the rose bushes along the
banks,” Hobbs said.
After the clean-up wraps up around 1 p.m., volunteers are served a lunch of fried chicken, pizza, pasta salad and dessert at Headwaters. Hobbs said the lunch is a light-hearted affair, with volunteers swapping tales of creatures hitchhiking in garbage bags and unusual finds excavated from the riverbed.
The French Broad River Clean-Up is a public-private partnership coordinated by Headwaters with support from local sponsors. Transylvania County Solid Waste, The Town of Rosman, Jarrett’s, Country Skillet, 4-Rent, The Transylvania Times, The Mountain Times and many others contribute money, food or services to the event every spring and fall.
Though support for the clean-up has remained steady despite hard economic times, Hobbs said new donations of cash or food are always welcome. “Feeding 70 hungry trash collectors can get expensive,” he acknowledged. “We could not do this event twice a year without the gracious help of local businesses. I think they realize, as we do, that the clean-up has an economic as well as an environmental benefit. When the river is pristine-looking, visitors come more often, stay longer and spend more money locally, which helps all of us who live and work here.”
Anyone who would like to donate should send a check to the French Broad River Clean-Up, c/o Headwaters Outfitters, P.O. Box 1057, Rosman, NC 28772. For more information about volunteering for the event, contact Hobbs at (828) 877-3106.
