In Regina, the snow melt and spring clean-up go hand in hand. Some neighbourhoods are revealing far more garbage and drug paraphernalia in backyard alleys where community organizations are pitching in together to clean up the areas that require most attention.
White Pony Lodge is a community-driven organization that relies heavily on volunteers that runs patrols in North Central every Friday night. During their weekly patrols, they hand out food, alert abandon buildings and pick up dangerous items such as needles, paraphernalia and medical waste.
“Every time the snow melts, a lot of stuff is uncovered. So, you get a lot of garbage piles, things like that that just kind of appear out of nowhere,” said Leah O’Malley, White Pony Lodge board member.
“Usually these weeks during spring, we’re doing a lot of as-safe-as-we-can digging into ice to retrieve needles. But sometimes you have to wait until the next week to come back and get them.”
Starting on April 20, 2023, White Pony Lodge will start a spring clean project to tackle the garbage problem in North Central and they plan on doing this for a few weeks and end with a big community cleanup with details at a minimal stage.
“We’d love people to show up and come out and help us out with this. We provide most equipment. We’ll have shovels, pickers, garbage bags, garbage cans … and Regina, dumping and hauling (will) provide the truck,” she said.
The City of Regina is assisting with the White Pony Lodge and the North Central Community Association to ramp up their cleanup programs where they will receive $2,000 grant.
“That funding can be used for paint to cover graffiti. It can be used for honoraria for volunteers, and it can be used to rent large dumpsters and other bins,” said Chris Sale, City of Regina Coordinator of Integration and Stakeholder Relations.
“The city does provide is free dumping fees around the community up. So … they can also use pickups and other things to take whatever they’re cleaning up in the community out to the dump, and they won’t be charged.”
Those who are interested in volunteering with White Pony Lodge can contact them through their social media pages.