Green Up Day
May 5, 2012

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Green Up Vermont
P. O. Box 1191
Montpelier, VT 05601-1191
Ph: 802-229-4586,
or 800-974-3259
greenup@greenupvermont.org

Green Up Vermont

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40th Anniversary Guestbook

In 2010, we celebrated 40 years of Green Up Day. We asked people to sign our online guestbook if they took part in Vermont's first Green Up Day, April 18, 1970, and to share their remembrances with us. Here is what they had to say:

1	January 05, 2011 - 04:14 PM Vasilii   Happy new year! I took part on the first Green Up Day along with my Girl Scout Troop in Bradford. We cleaned up one of the back roads in town. I saw your spot on Across The Fence. Amazing to see those paper bags!
2	May 03, 2010 - 08:26 PM Jill Lapham Kelly   I was finishing up my freshman year at Green Mountain College in Poultney. I remember collecting rubbish from the sides of the road somewhere near the campus. I was glad to be a part of the first Green Up Day! I live in Massachusetts but make frequent trips to Vermont and Ireland - one place is as green as the other!
3	May 01, 2010 - 12:06 PM Andrew K. White   I remember being part of the Boy Scout troop and picking up along RT.15 by Blow and Cote to the Dump Road and on Bridge Street by Lake Lamoille. George Paine drove us around in his brown Jeepster. I remember that we set on the tailgate with our feet dragging the pavement.We spent a long time on Bridge Street as that seemed where everyone would bump their cans and trash.
4	May 01, 2010 - 10:58 AM Marian Guihan   I just got off the phone with my Dad, asking him "Do you remember where we were 40 years ago right now?" "Yep" he said right away, "walking up the north bound lane of the interstate filling bags with trash!" My Dad was the headmaster of the Putney Grammar School at the time and he took a bunch of us 8th graders, riding in the open back of a pick-up, up the closed interstate to "our" mile. Like another person who wrote here, I still think of that mile as "ours". It was north of Putney where they were just building some new, fancy rest areas.....those rest areas were just torn down and closed, unbelievable. We had a grand time running all over the interstate and we filled that truck with trash, the ride back was not as spacious! Then we went on to clean a local road in Putney, the name of which I can't remember. But I do remember that Gov. Davis had dropped a lot of cans from a helicopter with dollar bills attached to them as incentive, and I found one! Shoulda kept it. My Dad doesn't have internet so he couldn't share here but he asked me to be sure and say the we were all in his brand new 1970 Ford pick-up. In the true spirit of Green up Day, that ol' truck was never dumped. It went on to live a long productive life on the farm, and they still have it. Far as I know it'll still start.
5	May 01, 2010 - 08:50 AM Meg Anderson Hagen   In 1970 my mother and I cleared a long section of Routes 4 and 12 North in Woodstock on Green Up Day. We began at Billings farm below Mt. Tom, and I have a proprietary fondness for it, still considering it "my stretch of road", although it is too dangerous a section to be cleared now on Green Up Day. I was 11 yrs. old, and remember the day vividly - hunting for trash along both sides of the road in the flattened grasses and along the steep banks of the rushing brook, the cars whizzing past us, the sun warming us, and that we felt great satisfaction about having many bags full of other people's stinky trash packed away in the back of the car when we finished. Frank H. Teagle Jr. was a visionary in the development of Woodstock's recycling efforts in the early 70's, and when we dropped off our piles of bags he was always on top of a huge pile of collected rubbish, sorting out valuable materials, God bless him. Thanks to his example I have remained devoted to recycling. Many years of cleaning up Woodstock roads later... I now live in Norway and continue the tradition of "greening up" here, when the snow melts in late May, and I share the story of Vermont's Green Up Day with anyone who will listen. I have planned several visits back to VT to include the first Saturday in May, in order to join dedicated friends and former classmates in front of the Town Hall at 8 am. I feel tremendous pride that my home state in the U.S. places such a value on natural beauty, and that thousands of Vermont residents are willing to pay for it each spring with miles and miles of sweat equity and smiles!
6	April 30, 2010 - 02:21 PM Teri Emilo   Hopefuuly with the publics awareness of the Earth and how important it is to keep it clean! many people will be out on Saturday cleaning up!! Happy 40th Birthday!! GREEN UP.
7	April 30, 2010 - 02:09 PM Connie Beal   I believe it was Green Up 2006 that my friend, Jon Harris & I dressed up as Green Up Superheros! We were Americorps VISTAs and volunteered to play the part. We wore sparkling green wigs, spandex and the fabulous bright green t-shirt with a flowing cape. It was quite a day, hundreds of bags of trash were collected in Burlington. The green wig and spandex are now retired, but not forgotten. Every year, I get out there to green up our streets. Go green go!
8	April 30, 2010 - 08:06 AM Dean E. Haller   I was a Rook at Norwich University and "was asked" to participate in Green Up Day in 1970. I do not recall the exact location we were assigned to and I really didn't understand the significance of the moment, but I was there. I left Norwich after my second year and attended Duquesne University. I married a wonderful young woman from my high school in Pennsylvania who attended Green Mountain College. We lived in Pittsburgh until returning to Vermont to raise our two young children in 1990. I now own a business, HRSentry, located in Colchester, VT. I will be participating in Green Up Day tomorrow thinking about the day and the person I was forty years ago. Dean E. Haller
9	April 30, 2010 - 07:16 AM Kris Rowley   I participated in the first Green Up event. My church group was assigned Rt. 14 in East Brookfield into the Williamstown gulf. One thing that I remember finding on that day, besides tires and other trash, was a Norwich University cadet ring! It was in a box that was thrown out in one of the pull-offs in the gulf. At my young age I thought I had found the biggest treasure in the world!NU cadet rings are rather large. The adults in the group called NU and we returned the ring to the officials there. We later heard that the ring was returned to its rightful owner, who was very glad to have it back. I have participated in several Green Up events since that first one. It is a wonderful way to get outside, enjoy the beauty of our great state and do something to keep it looking that way.
10	April 29, 2010 - 06:59 PM Sandra Luneau Leclair   I can remember participating in Green-up Day with my 4H group in St. Albans. My dad, who was a local dairy farmer, would hook up the manure spreader and we would clean all of Kellogg Road.

11 April 29, 2010 - 01:36 PM Lou Faivre   2010 will be my 40th year volunteering for GreenUp. In 1970 my brother Allen from Connecticut was visiting on leave from the Navy and we were assigned to Route 7 in Brandon North from the Brandon Training School to the Brandon/Leicester Town Line. We ran out of bags and had to go back to the park for more. We found a lot of metal pieces from auto accidents as I remember. The Town Manager wrote a letter to my brother's CO to report his volunteer work for Vermont GreenUp. 12 April 28, 2010 - 01:47 PM Lisa Rivolta   I lived in South Burlington and I picked up trash along I-189. As I remember it now I am amazed that they did close the interstates...I moved to Massachusetts after college but did participate several years when I was up here on vacation. Since moving back to South Burlington I have started participating again. 13 April 28, 2010 - 07:43 AM Cindy (Reeves) Fountain   Greetings! I, too participated in the first Green Up Day in 1970. Our church youth group from the Congregational Church in Hartford Village, Vermont filled up a farm flat bed with the youth group. We were given green bags and I remember just how much we picked up. Of course, this was long before the days of nickle deposits. I also remember the fun, the pride of doing something worthwhile and the beauty of the state. I had just had this discussion with my husband Norman and he didn't quite believe me when I told him the interstate was shut down. Thanks for verifying my memory. 14 April 27, 2010 - 04:48 PM Susan Bourne Laskaris   I grew up in Burlington and was 12 in 1970. I was recovering from a broken leg, still on crutches. My family and I helped to clean up the cloverleaf entrance to Burlington. Every time I take exit 14W I think of that day. A great experience and a very fond memory. I'm just glad that it stays pretty clean to this day! 15 April 27, 2010 - 12:53 PM William Eddy   I grew up in Hinesburg and was a Senior in High School during that first Greenup Day. Several of us teenagers in town fanned out to clean up the roadsides. I was in two groups, one to clean up part of Rte 116 and another to clean up part of Pond Road. In addition to all the beer cans and bottles, I remember that we came across an axel to an old piece of farm machinery. We brought it out of the woods and waited for the town truck to haul it away. 16 April 27, 2010 - 12:26 PM Kathleen O'Donnell Porter   I took part on the first Green Up Day along with my Girl Scout Troop in Bradford. We cleaned up one of the back roads in town. I saw your spot on Across The Fence. Amazing to see those paper bags! 17 April 26, 2010 - 12:38 PM Suzanne Babcock Dirnmaier   I was at the first Green Up Day as a Girl Scout in the town of Barton. What I remember most was the number of bottles that we picked up. We covered a back road that ran from Barton to Orleans that obviously was a popular area to have a drink and throw out the bottle. I remember dreaming that night about picking up bottles that seemed endless. It was a tortured dream indeed. I owned until recently a plastic faux construction had with the Green Up Day logo which we were given in the early years of green up. It was a little sad looking and when we were cleaning out my mother's house I was convinced by my sister who was less of a pack rat to part with it. She also took part in the early Green Up days. 18 April 25, 2010 - 11:53 AM Larry Fortier   I was the Green Up Day chairman in the town of hartland that first year. We had a large and enthusiastic turn out of volunteers and I remember how unique it was to clean up along Route 91 while it was closed in the morning. We cleaned along the Hartland-Quechee Road in the afternoon and were amazed by the items we found that had obviously been discarded many years before. I vowed after my experience in 1970 to never tolerate anyone throwing items from a car again. 19 April 22, 2010 - 09:39 PM Rebecca Boggess   I was a junior at Brattleboro Union High School. I remember that we were bussed south of town onto Interstate 91 to clean the sides of the highway and the median. There was no traffic, it was a beautiful day and we hauled tons of trash. I am proud of the people in our state who continue to volunteer to keep Vermont clean and green. 20 April 22, 2010 - 11:16 AM Hamilton Gillett   I was a sophomore at the Woodstock Country School in South Woodstock. I remember picking up litter on Rte. 106 between South Woodstock and Woodstock. I don't recall if I was with a school group or community group. For some reason I associate that day with Woodstock's Frank Teagle and the decision to never again purchase eggs in a styrofoam carton. I've kept my promise for 40 years. I'm coordinating Green Up Day this year in my adopted town of Windsor.

21 April 22, 2010 - 09:28 AM Sally Britton   I was a freshman at UVM that first green up day. My group cleaned up part of the interstate, somewhere near Burlington. Dean Davis stopped by while we were working. He picked up one of the bags of trash which ripped apart, spilling the trash. There was a rush to pick it up again as the camera person took a picture. 22 April 22, 2010 - 09:11 AM Sue Mahoney   I was working at the Tax Department in the building that now houses Personnel in Montpelier. Our Commissioner told us that Governor Davis wanted "volunteers" to clean up the area around the State House and other State Office Buildings. I usually spent my Saturdays golfing but because I had only been a State Employee for 3 months I was volunteered by my supervisor. I think there were three of us and we cleaned up the area around our buildig and the bushes around the drive-thru window at the old Chittenden Bank. It was amazing how much trash there was in such a small area. I admit, I was not a happy camper because I was working on a Saturday (with no pay or OT) but I do remember the sense of pride I felt when I looked around and saw how nice everything looked without the trash. It made a lasting impact on how I feel about litter and littering. 23 April 22, 2010 - 08:52 AM Linda Langer   I was a freshman at UVM and they sent buses to pick up the volunteers. I worked along the Lamoile River in Milton. I was stunned to realize how much stuff was tossed and how much didn't go away. It has had a lifelong impact on how I treated the earth. I live in Richmond and continue to do Green Up Day. Now we do it with the help of neighborhood kids.