Funding for this year's event was provided by a grant from the Great Lake Commission,
Parsons Ringsmuth Zelenock, LLC, Wicksall's Distributors, Nichols, Ellen Fred, and Dr. Wm. Howard.

Raffle prizes were provided by many local businesses. Dumpster use and other necessary equipment and
services was provided by many local businesses. The National Cherry Festival provided trash pickup for the
NCF event.

The main cleanup event was carried out on the scheduled day, June 10, 2009.
The YMCA Section was done by members of the Michigan Canoe Racing Association on June 3rd.

All assignments were done on the www.BRCleanSweep.org website.

About 60 people showed up at Scheck's Landing and 10 showed up donwtown at The Union Street Bridge
to work on the project. Some from as far away as Grand Rapids and St Clair County came to participate.
We even got group pictures this year that were pretty good.

10 to 15 people didn't come to the meeting at Scheck's but went directly to their locations and went to work.
I was not happy about this but they had other things to do that day but wanted to participate so I approved.

Some were late arriving and one didn't show up; all of which caused some shuttle problems for some of
the groups since 2 drivers were doing three shuttles. GPS Navigation Systems were used by one of the
shuttle drivers who was not familiar with all the roads and landings. That was a big help and no one got lost.

There were no accidents or injuries during the event and the weather was cool and comfortable.
Everything went as planned, if a bit confused at the beginning. All was sorted out as the day progressed.

There was a second downtown section cleanup during the NCF on July 10th which included members
of the public as well as TAPC members. There was a TAPC display in the Energy Tent sponsored by DTE Energy.

Most of the trash was found under bridges where homeless people sleep. At one bridge, on both sides, we
removed 4 - 48 gallon bags of trash so heavy that it took 2 of us to lift them. Even though this was not technically
in the river, if would have eventually been tossed in the river and so we decided to remove it. Personal belongings
were left behind.

This year, Steve Largent of the Grand Traverse Conservation District, identified several areas which are
upstream of the Forks area which are in need of cleaning. Members of the 4H Challege Club of Kingsley
High School and members of the 7th Grade Student Council of East Middle School did those sections.

These remote locations had been previuosly located and marked with a GPS so they would be easily found.

The upsteam areas, as well as the regular sections of the river that we have always cleaned were
done. As before, trails, bridges, landings and downtown streets along the river were cleaned.

Complimentary T-shirts and a nice appreciation picnic were provided at the GT Conservation District
which has running water, actual toilets and a cold water fountain. The GTCD has been especially helpful
to us.

The raffle netted 1225.00 and that was equally distributed to the 4H club and the GTCD.

In all the sections and on all the different days, about 900 pounds of trash was removed from the river.
Most of this was taken from the downtown section and the Brownbridge Pond.

Please feel free to email or call Norm Fred at the address below if you have any questions.