Busse Woods Earth Day cleanup brings people outdoors

Equipped with trash bags and extended grippers for picking up trash, a dozen people helped clean up a grove Saturday at Busse Woods in Elk Grove Village for Earth Day.

Mimi Rivera of the Forest Preserves of Cook County said the purpose of the event was to increase people’s awareness and get them involved with the forest preserves, and an Earth Day cleanup is one way to accomplish that.

“The main message is to enjoy nature,” Rivera said. “If they want to do that in a way that’s cleaning, then we’ll help them with that.”

Adam Dondzila of Lisle, who works at Northrop Grumman in Rolling Meadows, and his son Alex, 8-1/2, were among the participants who helped with the cleanup.

“We have a green employee research group, so I organized some other employees to come join me and we had a group of six or so,” Dondzila said. “We kind of piggy-backed off the local event here.”