Running alongside a major thoroughfare, it’s no surprise to see fast-food boxes and wrappers, bottles and cans, cardboard and plastic bags littering the Bishop Grandin Greenway in the spring.
For years, the Friends of the Bishop Grandin Greenway have organized a spring clean-up event that sees community members remove thousands of kilos of garbage from the greenway.
The greenway is a 4.7-kilometre long multi-use trail that stretches alongside Bishop Grandin Boulevard from the Red River to the Seine River, with connections into the Waverley Heights area.
"In past years, we usually see 40 volunteers come out on a specific clean-up day," Nicole Grabowski, a Friends board member said. "Last year, we picked up 700 pounds (318 kilograms) of trash."
This year, with the need to avoid contact to reduce the spread of COVID-19, the Friends cancelled the formal event and replaced it with a clean-up week from May 3 to 9.
The Friends have attached garbage bags to the mileposts along the trail, which they are asking people to fill with garbage and debris as they travel the greenway. Once filled, the bags can be dropped at the mileposts — which are located near major intersections — or behind the service shed at the end of Glen Meadow St. (near the tunnel) or by the community garden.
Bishop Grandin Greenway volunteers will collect the garbage bags throughout the week.
"This is important to me, given what the greenway means. It’s a link to other active living paths in other parts of the city. You can see geese and other birds, and see a lot of people out enjoying the day, on bikes, roller blading and walking," Grabowski said.
She is a resident of River Heights, but joined the board of the Friends a year ago in order to volunteer for a green project.
Friends’ vice-president Derick Young has been a board member since 2009. He said the idea for the greenway came about 20 years ago when local seniors expressed dismay about the decline of green space in St. Vital.
"People began working with the City of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Trails Association, and they got the trail system put in place over the next eight years, along with a community garden," Young said, adding the greenway continues to be expanded.
"We were supposed to hold a 20th anniversary event, but that had to be postponed until the fall," Grabowski said.
The goal of the Friends is to restore the greenspace, and develop awareness of the area’s natural and historical value, he said.
In the summer of 2019, they added a wildflower garden just west of St. Mary’s Rd., run by the Winnipeg Wildflower Project. The garden plot contains several different varieties of wildflowers and grasses from Prairie Originals. Once established, seed from the plot will be collected to grow native grasses and wildflowers elsewhere in the city.
The trail now links with other trails extending to Sage Creek in the east, and to the Waverley West area. It will eventually join trails along McGillivray Boulevard and Sterling Lyon Parkway to form part of a city-wide active transportation network.
For more information, see www.bishopgrandingreenway.com