Operation Neighborhood Clean-up Oct. 2

As plans for “Operation Neighborhood Clean-up” become finalized for Friday, Oct. 2 in the Frisco Subdivision, the Rolla Area Ministerial Alliance, together with the Rolla Police Department, encourages individuals or groups to participate in this beautification effort. All volunteers are asked to attend the welcome gathering that morning at 6:30 a.m. at the Ber Juan Park baseball field concession area on 18th Street. A complimentary breakfast will be provided.

The clean-up will take place from 7 a.m. to 12-noon on Oct. 2 in a 30-block area from 10th Street to 18th Street and Bardsley Road to Farrar Drive/Holloway Street. The clean-up effort will involve tree trimming, hedge trimming, and the removal of brush piles, household items and trash. The City of Rolla Fire and Rescue will be conducting home fire inspections and replacing batteries in existing smoke detectors. The City’s Community Development Department will be offering free inspections of homes and apartments, which they have already begun offering in that area.

Operation Neighborhood Clean-up will coincide with the annual City-wide Fall Clean-up which will be held on Saturday, Oct. 3 beginning at 6 a.m.

Anyone interested in volunteering for Operation Neighborhood Clean-up should contact Chris Foster, Associate Minister at First Christian Church at Greentree, at 364-2649 or cfoster@greentreerolla.org, or Sgt. Jeremy Martens at the Rolla Police Department at 364-1213 or at jmartens@rollacity.org.

Operation Neighborhood Clean-up will coincide with the annual City-wide Fall Clean-up which is coordinated by the City of Rolla’s Environmental Services Department. The City-wide Fall Clean-up will be held the following day on Saturday, Oct. 3. If you wish to participate in the City-wide Fall Clean-up (residential only), please place all items near the curb by 6 a.m.

Examples of items that will be accepted are furniture, microwaves, televisions, old clothes, and normal household trash. Items that will not be accepted are appliances, water heaters, yard waste, tires, or construction debris such as sheet rock, shingles, concrete or rock. Loose items should be placed in boxes or bags and small pieces of lumber should be bundled.

We ask that you do not place rollout trash containers at the curb because during this special fall clean-up they will not be emptied. For more information, please call the Environmental Services Department at 364-6693.

In closing I’d like to once again thank everyone in the community for coming out and supporting Stage 3 of the 2009 Tour of Missouri elite professional bicycle race the City hosted on Sept. 9. More than 500,000 fans attended the seven-day event, which began Sept. 7 in St. Louis and ended Sept. 13 in Kansas City. To say that this event was a positive experience for our community, businesses and residents would be the understatement of the year! The state-wide, national, and international exposure this event brings to the Rolla community is tremendous, and the social, recreational, and economic impact it has had made on our community has been equally tremendous.

Early estimates indicate that 675 hotel rooms were booked the night before the Tour came through Rolla on Sept. 8 – up 25% from last year’s figures when the City hosted Stage 4 of the Tour of Missouri. Area restaurants, eateries, grocery stores, and service stations no doubt experienced significant increases at their establishments when the Tour came through Rolla and St. James the next day.

I honestly can’t think of too many other events the City could host that would generate so much excitement, enjoyment, fun and goodwill for our community. We all have so much to be proud of as a community and I will forever treasure the memories of the City hosting the Tour of Missouri two years running!