About 200 people turned out early Saturday to help celebrate Earth Day during the community workday at Lydgate Park, Kamalani Playground and Bynum Bridge.
And there was enough work to keep everyone occupied through the four hours capped by an appearance by Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami on the day that also celebrates community and service.
“This is a launch pad for the community to get together and express their appreciation for what we have,” said Kurt Indvik, the public information advisor for Friends of Kamalani and Lydgate Park. “We have about 200 people representing schools, church organizations and residents. They’re involved in doing a lot of things.”
The Friends of Kamalani, which normally does weekly beach cleanups at Morgans Ponds, expanded their service to include repair and maintenance work at the Kamalani Playground, cleaning the heiau adjacent to Lydgate Park, clearing and cleaning a disc golf course that was only recently added to the offerings at the Wailua park, and work on the Bynum Bridge.
“We’re just the breakfast team,” said Debbie Chuckas of the Macy’s team. “This is the same people we had last week during the March for Babies fundraiser, except we lost a member, and gained a member. Now, we’re going back to open the store.”
The Macy’s team was working on beach cleanup, stopping along Ke Ala Hele Makalae to consolidate their collections including way too many cigarette butts. Isn’t Lydgate Park supposed to be a tobacco-free facility?
“I don’t really know,” said Valerie Saiki of the Kauai Tobacco-Free Coalition. “I didn’t have enough time to gather volunteers, and I’m doing first-aid duty today. But having Lydgate designated as a tobacco-free facility helps those people who remind smokers that the park is tobacco-free.”
An army of Kapaa High School students from the Interact Club was broken down to man the Zero Waste Kauai receptacles as well as run liquids to the volunteers spread out over the expansive park.
“I heard about this from Kay Holt, who teaches exercise,” said Sally Bauer of Washington. “We’ve done work with Lydgate Park before, and staying at the Kaha Lani condos. We just want to be part of the community.”
Bauer was working with Holt and other ladies preparing food, much of it contributed by community businesses and organizations, for the army of volunteers that included Muruga Simmonds of the Bay Area, who was interrupted in his cleanup efforts when his rake broke.
Pat Griffin, driving a vehicle shuttling driftwood collections to the roll-off container, said there was no Earth Day cleanup in 2018.
“We didn’t do Earth Day,” Griffin said. “There was the flooding from all that rain. One of our stalwart people got affected by the floods in Anahola so about 200 of us met here and we all went to help him in Anahola.”
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
