Friends of the Fox River to hold second annual Fox River cleanup events Friday
Friends of the Fox River will celebrate the second annual “It's Our Fox River Day” with four cleanup events Friday in Elgin.
Two of the locations are open to public volunteers, according to Gary Mechanic, the group's executive director. State Rep. Anna Moeller and state Sen. Christina Castro will lead an effort at Trout Park, and the Boys and Girls club will do the same near the Gail Borden Public Library. Both events are 5 to 7 p.m.
Other cleanups not involving public volunteers will be done by the city of Elgin utilities department along West River Road and by Judson University and the New Life Covenant Church in the Tyler Creek area near the Judson campus.
Mechanic said after years of seasonal cleanups by local groups that yielded all sorts of “big, weird stuff,” volunteers will focus on the smaller trash that accumulates and can be too much for park district or city workers to clean up, such as soda cans, cigarette butts and fishing lines.
“It might seem small to us, but it's big to mussels and the other things that live in the river that we're trying to protect,” he said.
Community organizations and groups along the Fox River from the headwaters near Waukesha, Wisconsin to the river's confluence with the Illinois River in Ottawa will hold similar cleanups, including locations in Algonquin and St. Charles on Saturday.
For information about volunteering, visit https://friendsofthefoxriver.org/fox-river-day-2/