Carbondale is cleaning up its downtown this month with help from local students.
With Earth Day two weeks away, the city’s Shade Tree Commission plans to clean up a heavily traveled trail off Seventh Avenue on Saturday, followed by a collaboration with NeighborWorks Northeastern Pennsylvania to spruce up city businesses along Main and Church streets April 22.
“It’s inviting. It makes you want to be there,” Mayor Michele Bannon said of cleaning up the downtown. “It makes people proud.”
The Carbondale Shade Tree Commission will start work at 9 a.m. Saturday for its Wurts Brothers Lane cleanup, Bannon said. The commission does cleanup projects throughout the town, including along Wurts Brothers Lane, which is a walking trail that connects Seventh Avenue to the shopping center on Eighth Avenue and provides a connection to the city’s residential section, Bannon said. Students often use the trail to walk to school, but winter took its toll on the path, she said.
The trail has a lot of litter and broken branches from trees, said Shade Tree Commission Chairwoman Joann Wall. So, the commission asked the Carbondale Area Chargers football team for help, Wall said.
“It teaches the children to take pride in their community,” she said.
The commission has been cleaning the trail for about eight years, Wall said.
For a larger downtown cleanup project, NeighborWorks and the city will work with Carbondale Area High School students April 22 to clean up the exteriors of city businesses, Bannon said.
“All the cleanups we do are based on developing community pride and just cleaning up our downtown and cleaning up our city,” Bannon said, adding with a laugh, “We’re hoping it’s contagious.”
Emily Arcaro, the community revitalization specialist for Carbondale at NeighborWorks, said she will have 16 honors students from Carbondale washing exterior windows and sweeping sidewalks at participating businesses. So far, about a dozen businesses have signed up, she said, explaining the offer is open to any business along Main Street or Church Street. It’s not a professional cleaning service, but it is a way to engage with Carbondale businesses while also getting students out into their city’s downtown and instilling a sense of community pride, Arcaro said.
“This is really students out with Windex doing their best to just give downtown a little bit of a facelift,” Arcaro said.
NeighborWorks previously worked with 20 Carbondale seventh graders to clean up Memorial Park across from City Hall in the fall, and then they took a walk down Main Street to clean up leaves, garbage and debris along the curb cuts, inspiring the idea for a spring cleanup after the winter thaw, she said.
“I’m looking for ways to continue to bridge that gap between students … with their downtown and get the students to recognize and be happy about where they live, and get businesses also recognizing the benefits of the students,” she said. “The goal here is to try to tie them both closer together and just have that sense of community.”
So far, about a dozen businesses have signed up, and while distributing flyers about the cleanup, Arcaro said business owners were enthusiastic.
If the Earth Day cleanup works out, Arcaro hopes to make it an annual event in the city while also holding other cleanups throughout the year.
The business cleanup ties into both the city’s Blueprint Communities program and Carbondale Core Neighborhood Plan, Bannon said. Carbondale is working with NeighborWorks on both projects.
Carbondale was one of 10 communities across Pennsylvania to become “Blueprint Communities” in April 2024 when it embarked on a free, year-and-a-half-long process to create a strategic plan to revitalize its downtown. The core neighborhood plan is a multimillion-dollar, 10-year project that aims to turn Carbondale into a destination with investments into infrastructure, recreation and revitalization.
“All of these events that we’re doing, we’re hoping builds the foundation for us to continue to do them in the future,” Bannon said.
To participate in the Shade Tree Commission’s trail cleanup, either stop by the trail at 9 a.m. Saturday or message facebook.com/CarbondaleShadeTreeComission. Businesses interested in having their windows washed and sidewalks swept on Earth Day can contact Arcaro at carbondale@nwnepa.org or 570-558-2490.