Tag: leaf cleanup

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Street Leaf Cleanup Off to an Amazing Start

A huge THANK YOU to all the incredible neighbors who joined us for the kickoff of the 2024 GWCA Street & Crosswalk Leaf Cleanup on Saturday, November 16.

Together, we tackled key Greenview intersections at Cuyler, Belle Plaine, Berteau, and Cullom, and even mid-block areas along Belle Plaine, Berteau, Warner, and Hutchinson. By 11 AM, more than 40 bags of street leaves were already ready for pickup—what an amazing start to this annual tradition.

But we’re not done yet! Let’s keep up the momentum through November 24. Rake and bag street and crosswalk leaves in your area to:

  • Prevent street flooding.
  • Keep sidewalks and crosswalks safe for everyone.
  • Ensure a cleaner, more beautiful neighborhood this fall.

How to Help:

  • Place bagged leaves on the closest crosswalk.
  • Streets & Sanitation will do a special pick-up after November 24.

Your hard work makes a real difference—let’s keep the energy going and make 2024 our best cleanup yet.

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Graceland West Green Events – Nov 9th and 16th

Pumpkin Smash at Lake View High School

Saturday, November 9, 10 AM – 2 PM
LVHS Parking Lot, 4000 block of N Greenview

Give your pumpkins a smashing send-off! Join us to compost old Halloween pumpkins—over 1,000 were smashed last year! Costumes welcome (again), just remove any candles, paint, or decorations first. Sponsored by U of I Extension Services, USDA, and Streets and Sanitation.

Photo: Teddi Burgess

GWCA Annual Street & Crosswalk Leaf Cleanup

Saturday, November 16, 10 AM – Noon
Meet at Greenview & Belle Plaine, Berteau, or Cullom

Bring a rake and help us clear street leaves to reduce flooding and keep crosswalks safe. Last year, we filled 400 bags—let’s top that! Can’t make it on Nov 16? Clean up any time from Nov 16-24 and leave bagged leaves on your parkway for our special pick-up.

Reminder: Leave yard leaves as winter homes for pollinators!

Why do we do this? Our 47th Ward 4th and final scheduled street sweeping was in early October. All our leaves now fall after that last sweeping and removing them will reduce stormwater and snow-melt flooding. This effort also reduces falls by making crosswalks and streets less slick for pedestrians.

Street Leaf Cleanup

November 16, 2024 @ 10:00 am – November 24, 2024 @ 5:00 pm

GWCA’s largest annual volunteer event 

Street & Crosswalk Leaf Cleanup Launch:
Saturday, November 16, 10 AM to noon at three Greenview intersections:
Belle Plaine, Berteau & Cullom

Bring: a rake and something to scoop leaves into bags (small shovel, leaf scoop, dustpan).  Put bagged street leaves on parkway.

Why do we do this? Our 47th Ward 4th and final scheduled street sweeping was in early October.  All our leaves now fall after that last sweeping.  To reduce stormwater and snow-melt flooding, we need to get all street leaves up.  This effort also reduces falls by making crosswalks and streets less slick for pedestrians.  And we’re not shoveling heavy street leaves with snow in the winter.

Nov 16 doesn’t work for me:  No problem.  Our Street Leaf Cleanup is Nov 16 through 24.  Clean up your street, crosswalk and sidewalk leaves anytime through Sunday November 24.  Leave these bagged leaves on your parkway.  Ben will inventory them early on Nov 25 and Streets and Sanitation will have a special pick-up for us after Nov 24.Then continue to keep street, sidewalk and crosswalk leaves raked and bagged.  Call 311 for a pick-up

What about yard leaves?  Fall leaves are home to butterfly and lightening bug larvae and more. Leaving a good coating of leaves provides protection for Spring beneficial insects. Then wait until May 1st or 10th for Spring Garden and yard cleanup and for mowing and never use pesticide.

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Who will win the GWCA Golden Rake? Find out Thursday at Port & Park

Every year, our final quarterly community meeting is a celebration and social gathering. This year it will be held Thursday December 7th at 5:30 at Port & Park. We’ll have some fun and announce the winner of this year’s golden rake for amazing work during our annual street leaf cleanup. As always, reach out to info@gracelandwest.org with any questions.

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Let’s finish the job! Bag the rest of your street leaves today

Who wants to win the “Golden Rake” Award for raking and bagging the most street leaves in Graceland West by the end of the day today, Sunday Nov 19.

Borders are Montrose, Clark, Irving Park and Ashland. Rake and bag your street leaves and place the bag on your parkway for pickup after the 19th.

Take a photo and share it with us info@gracelandwest.org with your name and number of bags of street leaves.

Thanks to all the energetic and kind neighbors who raked and bagged almost 100 bags of street leaves in 90 minutes last weekend at five Greenview intersections.

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Let’s get outside and bag some leaves!

Block Rep Liza S kicked off GWCA’s 11th Annual Street and Crosswalk Leaf Cleanup at Cullom and Greenview with these bagged leaves.  Please bring a rake, your family, friends and some neighbors and officially help kick-off this project at 9 am Saturday, Nov 11.  Kick-off is at Greenview and Belle Plaine, Berteau and Cullom intersections where we will provide bags.

Can’t make it Saturday?  Just bag your street and crosswalk leaves through Nov 19 for a special parkway pick-up after Nov 19.  

We need everyone to help.  This effort makes streets and crosswalks less slick for pedestrians.  And it keeps leaves from clogging sewers and flooding streets, basements and vehicles. Our goal is 500 bags of street and crosswalk leaves.  Please take photos and send to info@gracelandwest.org

GWCA Volunteer Street Leaf Cleanup

November 11, 2023 @ 9:00 am – November 19, 2023 @ 5:00 pm

GWCA 11th Annual Street and Crosswalk Leaf Clean-up.  Launch is Saturday, Nov 11 at 9 am.  Meet at Greenview and Belle Plaine, Berteau or Cullom.  Can’t help then.  Clean street leaves and place bagged leaves on the nearest parkway from Nov 11 through Nov 19.  Streets and Sanitation will do a special pick up for us after Nov 19.

GWCA

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Happy New Year! Graceland West 2022 in Review

2022 was a great year of re-emergence (of sorts) after a couple of years of flattening the COVID-19 curve and building immunity.

  • We kicked the year off after hibernating for the winter at our March meeting where we had a great time with Alderman Matt Martin and continued to build our relationship with Lake View High School, specifically their STEM program representatives and our very own Council member and teacher Joanne Yonan. 
  • On Earth Day we cleaned up the streets around the high school with our Congressman Mike Quigely.
  • Our Q2 meeting took place in beautiful Warner Park and focused on the efforts of the GWCA Eco Committee, led by Council member Joel McFarland who is an Openlands certified TreeKeeper.  We also heard from the Alderman’s office and CDOT about safe streets improvements.  More on this topic in 2023.
  • The annual yard sale was moved up to June.  Many thanks to Mark Nehring for his leadership.
  • The annual Garden Walk celebrated 40 years in 2022.  40 years!  Fearlessly led by Donna Forsberg for one last time as she called this year her last as the chairperson.  Mother Nature decided to keep us guessing throughout the day but allowed for plenty of time for all of our amazing neighborhood gardeners to share their efforts with guests.
  • The newly branded Graceland West Neighborhood Fest (formerly GWCAFest) was visited by Gale and Squall who dumped about 2 ft of flooding into the neighborhood, but that didn’t stop Sarah Maxwell, Barb Sullivan, Brad Pierce and their volunteers (including LVHS students) from toughing it out and waiting for the weather to clear for the neighborhood to emerge to enjoy Peg’s famous bake table, Randy’s age-less magic, Lisa B’s smooth vocals, Tacos, Tacos, Tacos (and Margaritas), and flame throwing (aka juggling)!
  • Our Q3 meeting finally brought us back into LVHS where we were introduced to the LVHS Robotics program (which is incredible)!
  • The Halloween party at Warner Park returned after a couple year hiatus and featured some amazing costumes, games and make your own candy apples.  Special thanks to Andrea and Colin McLeod and their volunteers for hosting the event.
  • And sure enough, Mother Nature wasn’t finished with us when she gave us rain and 50 mph winds the morning of our Street Leaf Cleanup and the Pumpkin Smash at LVHS.  Didn’t stop new Council member Paul Monzella from raking Cullom/Greenview until it was pristine. Throughout the week we totaled 182 bags, picked up by the Ward Superintendent the next week.
  • We finished off the year back at the Piggery, our gracious hosts for our March and December meetings, where we enjoyed pizza, pork and socializing.

The GWCA Council would like to recognize our Block Reps who helps to deliver flyers and spread important neighborhood news.  Thank You! 

Also, thanks to all who volunteered or attended any of the GWCA meetings and events and participated in the goal of the association to foster positive relationships between residents of the neighborhood, promote civic engagement and educate community members on issues of common interest such as crime prevention, neighborhood history and preservation, and community improvement.  It takes a village!

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Events & Announcements

GWCA’s 10th Annual Street Leaf Cleanup

Rake/Smash/Play/Learn

Saturday, November 5th, 10 AM – 2PM

Street Leaves on Greenview


Rake: Meet at 10 am at the Greenview intersection of either Cullom, Berteau, Belle Plaine or Cuyler. Bring a rake and leaf bags (we will have extra bags). Clean leaves from streets, parkways, crosswalks and sewer grates and place full bags on the parkways.

Clean remaining street, crosswalk and parkway leaves through November 13 for special parkway pickup after November 13.

Who will win the GWCA Golden Rake Award this year for most bagged street leaves?


Smash: Smash your pumpkins and gourds at Lake View High School for composting. The University of Illinois County Extension Services will be running the Composting
Event on November 5th in tandem with the GWCA street leaf cleanup. Last year over 1,000 pumpkins and gourds were composted from this event. Pumpkins must be free of candles, stickers, glitter, yarn, synthetic decorations. We can compost pumpkins decorated with water-based paints.


Play: Lane Tech will have games for kids (10-2).


Learn: Please stop by the University of Illinois and County Extension, environmental and GWCA tables.

GWCA 10th Annual Street Leaf Cleanup

Street Leaves on Greenview 11/12/21

November 5, 2022 – November 13, 2022

We’ll kick things off on Nov. 5th at the corner of Belle Plaine and Greenview.  Please bring 3-4 leaf bags and a rake.

This annual event is a great way to see your neighbors and helps make walking surfaces less slick when the rain turns to ice and reduces flooding due to clogged storm drains.

Details

Start:
November 5, 2022
End:
November 13, 2022
Event Tags:
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GWCA
Email
info@gracelandwest.org
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Graceland West Neighborhood

4100 N Greenview Ave
Chicago, IL 60613 United States + Google Map
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