stewardMRV Success

Last week I traveled 62.3 miles in 8.25 hours, and I walked all 22 of the designated stewardMRV sites. Each of which has been cleaned up and monitored by one of our  stewardMRV team volunteers.  I was thrilled with the results, and I must send out a huge thank you to all of the volunteers that make this program possible.  Most of the sites were totally spotless.  My curiosity was to see “how little” garbage that I would have to pick up at all 22 sites, combined.

In the past we measured “how much” garbage we removed.  Perhaps it’s time for a change of philosophy and unit of measure to “how little”.  When I set out on this mission, I hoped that I would have less than a single kitchen sized garbage bag.  I am thrilled to report that we did it. I only filled two thirds of a single garbage bag, found two larger miscellaneous items, and recovered numerous sets of shoes and clothing which have all been cleaned and repurposed!

 I believe that moving forward we might need to celebrate our success and change our unit of measure from “how much” to “how little” garbage we carry out.  This is proof that the system works, if people find it clean then they leave it clean. One of my concerns is that the volunteers might get frustrated if when they show up at their locations and there isn’t anything to pick up. I have assured them that they are certainly NOT wasting their time.  This is proof that their collective efforts have paid off

One of the reasons that the stewardMRV program was established was due to community members visiting our more popular sites and being “embarrassed” by how much garbage there was at our beautiful sites.  It was during covid, and we faced many challenges in correcting this trend.  Thus, the birth of stewardMRV. I’d like to call out and thank our volunteeers for being part of the solution.  Collectively, we are truly creating an ethos of stewardship in the Mad River Valley.

Tom Spencer
steward MRV Program Coordinator

Learn more about the stewardMRV Program