NEWS from ACTION, INC.

Compass teens clean up the city

July 25, 2002 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GLOUCESTER – The Compass Youth Program of Action, Inc., is cleaning up by removing tons of litter from along Gloucester’s highways and streets.

Sponsored and funded by the Gloucester Clean City Commission, the Compass Clean City project collected 400 bags of trash – an estimated four tons – in its first five days on the job.

Traveling in teams of five and wearing distinctive orange, green, or red T-shirts, the Compass cleanup program will continue its work through August.

Each team is building up points that, at the end of the summer, will earn the winning group a cruise around Gloucester Harbor aboard the city harbormaster’s boat.

Workers also are on the lookout for “the strangest trash and the oldest trash,” according to Boris Baxter, program director of Compass, which is a two-year-old education, training and job-placement initiative for at-risk youth ages 14 to 21.

Candidates for strangest trash so far include an unopened jar of olives, and a toy steam shovel labeled “Mary Anne,” representing the big earthmoving machine in the classic children’s book, “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel,” by Gloucester author Virginia Lee Burton.

The oldest trash apparently collected to date, according to Tony Corrao, a member of the Clean City Commission and the commission’s project coordinator, is an ancient bottle opener. “It looks like it’s been at the bottom of the ocean for 14 years,” Corrao said.

The project is funded with a $20,000 grant from Gloucester’s Community Development Block Grant.

The program also is supported by local restaurants (including Amelia’s, Leonardo’s Pizza, the Yellow Submarine Shop, Jim’s Donuts and Bagels, and Dunkin’ Donuts), which provide lunches and breakfasts.

Waste Management, Inc., and the Gloucester Department of Public Works are carrying away the collected trash. The Cape Ann Transportation Authority provides Clean City crew members free passage to their work areas aboard its buses.

Action, Inc., is Cape Ann’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization, working since 1965 to help improve the lives of low-income families and individuals and their neighbors in Gloucester, Rockport, Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Ipswich.

Action’s programs include emergency and long-term housing assistance, Elder Homecare, fuel assistance and energy conservation, comprehensive employment and computer skills training, high-school level and GED education, a pilot adult foster care program, and English as a Second Language (ESOL) classes.

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(NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: For locations where crews will be working on given days, please call Boris Baxter or Daphne Coroniti at Compass, telephone 978-281-9682)

Press contacts: Jerry Ackerman at 978-283-1189 or Chanda Millett at 978-283-7874.