8:00 am Saturday, March 26th, 64 degrees, seven mph south wind, clear sunny skies.
Wow, what a great day to be out on Lake Vilbig -- cool morning temperatures, a light breeze,
low humidity, and plenty of sunshine. We couldn’t have asked for a better day!
So, on this wonderful Saturday, twenty-four dedicated stewards of Lake Vilbig volunteered ½ a day to clean the lake for the approximately 520 “other” members.
Breakfast from 8:00-9:00 included coffee, juices, donuts, and a special treat of delicious fresh breakfast dumplings prepared by Jun Guo. After breakfast and socializing, this small crew worked until noon collecting 960 pounds of trash and ~60 pounds of recycling (3 blue bags full). A total of 1,020 pounds went to the landfill.
When you see one of the stewards listed below, please thank them for their time and effort to make Lake Vilbig a cleaner and healthier place for you to enjoy: Matt Shelley, Hanna Beauchamp, John Mikalik, Sandy White, Andy Jia, Zhong (John) Ye, Tina Ye, Ping Wang, Julie Skotak, Mathew Chittatil, Greg and Joanne Hoffmann, Anwu Zhou, Jun Guo, Cecilia, and Brad Dusek, George Chirayil, Sherry Huse, Jonathan Kirk, Tony Saltarski, Rick Huffman, Brad Dale, Steve Gonzalez, and Jerry Mullendore.
Special thanks go to these participants: Joanne Hoffmann, Hanna Beauchamp, Cecilia Dusek, Sandy White, Anwu Zhou, Ping Wang, and Greg Hoffmann for the flyer distribution; Jun Guo and Greg and Joanne Hoffmann for breakfast; Greg Hoffmann for refreshments, lunch, and coordination, John Mikalik for the use of his truck and Jonathan Kirk for the use of the trailer, Keep Irving Beautiful (KIB-Rick Hose & Julie Schmitt) for supplies and the City of Irving landfill access.
The ILA Board of Directors, KIB, and the City Of Irving of sponsoring the event. We hope it is not ILA members contributing to the trash in the lake, but it is getting there somehow.
The City of Irving has installed storm drain grates along the street-side drains to
reduce the inflow of debris, and the ILA has installed collection gates on the lakeside to contain waste. We all need to be stewards of Lake Vilbig! It is up to ALL of us to maintain our great resources. If you see trash around, in the lake, or on the street, please pick it up and dispose of it with your regular weekly garbage.
It was a very successful event and a great social time for these stewards of Lake Vilbig. If we had twice the number of volunteers, we could have cleaned the entire lake! There is still a bunch of trash out there, so when you are out and about on Lake Vilbig, please continue to pick up any trash you see and let us know how much you gathered. Next year we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of these cleanup events in the Spring 2023; please plan to attend.